-o}ltq< 



THE 



CELEBRATION 



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^TER-MILL£iV,Y5j 



ANNIVERSARY 



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i;|e{ji0iriiieil pi;i0fifdaiiit mnkh %lmuh 



OF TMB mtf QF 



pL-:^^'!:': ^p III 
igen-biatbt muuht maifet. 






j^he (ploijy of (^hildijen ai{8 theivi ^"athmis. 




In the Church, Fifth Avenue and Twenty-Ninth Street 



liii-ii^i 



A^ 



S.IS30 



CONTENTS. 



|)vcfator}3 Koticc. 



Scruifcs in tl)c Afternoon 

}lr. 0rmist0n*s Eemarl^s. 
Br. tiermilye's Hiscaxarsij. 



0ciDicc6 in tl)c ^Dcning: 

|tddri3ss Cxi iha Ei3U. Br. Mx. 
Jtjddtjess o-t the Eeu. Br. liagers. 



Address at the iivx^.u. 3>r. ^rusbt). 
Jiddtess 0f the Eeu. 3->r. Jinderson. 



liddress 0f the Eeu, Br. Tiffaiit). 
liddress at the llev. Br. Storrs, 



THE PROCEEDINGS. 



At a meeting of the Consistory of the Reformed 
Protestant Dutch Church of the City of New York, 
held September 5th, 1878, the Rev. Dr. Chambers 
called attention to the fact, (of which he said that he 
had recently been reminded by the Rev. Dr. Corwin, 
of Millstone, N. J.), that the present year was the 
250th since the organization of this church. The 
evidence of the fact is contained in the second volume 
of the " Documents relating to the Colonial History of 
the State of New York," published some years ago 
by order of the Legislature, The appendix to this 
volume gives at length a letter describing the first 
visit of an ordained minister to the Island of Manhat- 
tan. The letter was first printed about twenty years 
ago in the Kerk-historisch A r chiefs a periodical 
issued in Amsterdam, and in the year 1858 was trans- 
lated and published in this country by the Hon. Henry 
C. Murphy, then minister at the Hague. It was 



Quarter- Millefiniai Anniversary of the 



addressed by die Rev. Jonas MIchaelius to the Rev. 
Adrianiis Smoutius, of Amsterdam. The writer had 
served as chaplain abroad in San Salvador and Guinea 
on the west coast of Africa, but in January, 1628, 
sailed to New Amsterdam, to labor under the super- 
intendence of a committee of ministers appointed by 
the Synod of North Holland. The present letter is 
the first written after his arrival, and bears date 
August II. In it, after an account of the voyage and 
its hardships, occurs the following passage : 

" We have first established the form of a church [geineentc) ; and 
as Brother Bastiaen Crol very seldom comes down from Fort Orange, 
[Albany], because the directorship of that fort and the trade there is 
committed to him, it has been thought best to choose two elders for 
my assistance and for the proper consideration of all such ecclesiastical 
matters as might occur, intending the coming year, if the Lord permit, 
to let one of them retire and to choose another in his place from a 
double number first lawfully presented by the congregation. One of 
those whom we have chosen is the Honorable Director himself, and the 
other is the store-keeper of the Company, Jan Huyghen, his brother- 
in-law, persons of very good character as far as I have been able to 
learn ; having both been formerly in office in the church, the one as 
deacon, the other as elder, in the Dutch and French churches respect- 
ively, at Wesel. 

"We have had at the first administration of the Lord's Supper full 
fifty communicants — not without great joy and comfort for so many — 
Walloons and Dutch; of whom a portion made their first confession of 
faith before us, and others exhibited their church certificates. Others 
had forgotten to bring their certificates with them, not thinking that a 
church would be formed and established here ; and some, who had 
brought them, had lost them unfortunatelv in a general conflagration, 
but they were admitted upon the satisfactorv testimony of others to 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. 



whom they were known and also upon their daily good deportment, 
since we cannot observe strictly all the usual formalities in making a 
beginning under such circumstances. We administer the Holy Sacra- 
ment of the Lord once in four months, provisionally until a larger 
number of people shall otherwise require. The Walloons and French 
have no service on Sunday, other than that in the Dutch language, ot 
which they understand very little. Some of them live far away and 
could not come on account of the heavy rains and storms, so that it 
was neither advisable, nor was it possible, to appoint any special service 
for so small a number with so much uncertainty. Nevertheless, the 
Lord's Supper was administered to them in the French language, and 
according to the French mode, with a preceding discourse, which I 
had before me in writing, as I could not trust myself extempora- 
neously." 

After the reading of this document, it was ''Resolved, 
that this Consistory will observe the 250th anniversary 
of the origin and founding of this church, and that a 
committee of three be appointed to confer with the 
pastors and report on the time and manner of the 
celebration." Messrs. Theophilus A. Brouwer, James 
Anderson, M. D., and Henry Van Arsdale, M. D., were 
appointed the committee. At a subsequent meeting 
of the Consistory this committee reported, recom- 
mending that the celebration take place on the 21st 
of November, in the church on 29th Street and 5th 
Avenue, and suggesting such services as they consid- 
ered appropriate to the occasion. The report was 
adopted, and the same committee was continued, with 
power to take charge of the anniversary and make 
the necessary provision for the exercises suggested. 
These were an historical discourse by the senior 



Qiiartci'-Millemiial Anniversary of tJie 

pastor in the afternoon, and a series of addresses of 
congratulation and sympathy in the evening, by repre- 
sentatives of the different denominations in our city, 
together with devotional services rendered by honored 
brethren of our own communion, the whole inter- 
spersed with suitable music. The committee accord- 
ingly made the requisite arrangements, issued invita- 
tions, prepared programmes and gave due notice, so 
that when the day arrived, although the weather was 
unfavorable, large audiences were in attendance, that 
of the evening being greater than the seating capacity 
of the church, and the entire plan was carried out, as 
shown by the reports herewith given, in a very 
gratifying way. At the next meeting of the Consistory 
(December 5) that body, by a formal vote, tendered 
their thanks to the committee "for the able and highly 
satisfactory manner in which they had discharged their 
duties." 

The buildino- in which the services were held was 
tastefully decorated for the occasion with flowers and 
banners. In the pulpit alcove, midway between floor 
and ceiling, was fastened a wreath of red and white 
roses encircling a white dove. A delicate festooned 
spray of ivy ran up above in graceful curves, meeting 
the edge of an American flag on the left and the edge 
of the Holland standard on the rieht. The flag^s 
swept down to the floor, and between them hung an 
anchor of white roses and pinks. The wall on each 
side was draped with American flags. The front of 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. 



the preacher's stand was festooned with arbutus. A 
mass of white and yellow roses, pinks and carnations, 
in the centre of which in red flowers was worked the 
number "250," adorned the front of the desk. On 
the church wall, at the left of the pulpit, in the centre 
of a square frame of evergreens on a bank of white 
flowers, was worked "1628," and on the right, in a 
similar manner, "1878." Colored silk banners floated 
from the gallery rail, inscribed "Faith," "Hope," 
"Charity," "Obedience," "Love," "Genius," "Cour- 
age," "Mercy," &c. "Praise God from whom all 
blessings flow," was written over the organ pipes. 
The atmosphere of the church was redolent of the 
perfume of the flowers. 

The music, under the direction of Dr. S*. Austen 
Pearce and Mr. W. E. Beames, rendered by several 
combined choirs, numbering over seventy trained 
voices, aided by the organ and appropriate brass 
instruments, was of a very high order of merit. 

Seats vv^ere reserved on the right hand of the pulpit 
for ruling elders and elders of the Great Consistory, 
and on the left for deacons in office and deacons of 
the Great Consistory. The officiating ministers occu- 
pied seats in the pulpit. They were followed from 
the vestry by Mayor Ely, Consul-General Burlage, 
from Holland ; President De Peyster, of the New 
York Historical Society; President Monroe, of the 
Y. M. C. A.; Hon. John Jay, William E. Dodge, and 
other well-known residents of New York. Many 



lO Quarter-Millennial Anniversary of the 

members of the St. Nicholas and Historical Societies 
were among the congregation, and an unusually large 
number of clergymen, both of the Dutch Reformed 
Church and of all the other evangelical communions, 
occupied seats which had been reserved for them in 
the front of the church. 



Protestant Refonned Dutch Church. 



II 



Present ©ffuers of tl)e €l)urcl). 



Rev. THOMAS E. VERMILYE, D.D., LL.D.. installed October 
20, 1839. 

Rev. TALBOT W. CHAMBERS, D.D., installed December 2, 1849. 

Rev. WILLIAM ORMISTON, D.D., installed September 11, 1870. 



€{Ux%, 



JAMES ANDERSON, 
WILLIAM BOGARDUS, 
THEOPHILUS A. BROUWER, 
ROBERT BUCK, 
PETER DONALD, 
JOHN GRAHAM, 



DANIEL P. INGRAHAM, 
SAMUEL B. SCHIEFFELIN, 
GAMALIEL G. SMITH, 
JOHN L. SMITH, 
HENRY VAN ARSDALE, 
JOHN VAN NEST. 



5cav0U^. 



HENRY W. BOOKSTAVER, 
WILLIAM L. BROWER, 
JOHN S. BUSSING, 
ROBERT DORSETT, 
WILLIAM H. DUNNING, 
JAMES S. FRANKLIN, 



ALEXIS A. JULIEN, 
HENRY E. KNOX, 
NEILSON OLCOTT, 
WILLIAM B. RUNK, 
ABR'M V.W.VAN VECHTEN, 
CHARLES H. WOODRUFF. 



Clerk— GEORGE S. STITT, Esq. 
Treasurer— JAMES PHYFE. 



12 



Quar-tcr-Millemiial Anniversary of the 



®l)c ®rcat €on5i6torj). 



RICHARD AMERMAN, 
JAMES ANDERSON, 
ABRAHAM BEEKMAN, 
ABRAHAM BOGARDUS, 
WILLIAM BOGARDUS, 
ORLANDO M. BOGART, 
HENRY W. BOOKSTAVER, 
JAMES H. BRIGGS, 
THEOPHILUS A. BROUWER, 
WILLIAM L. BROWER, 
ROBERT BUCK, 
JOHN S. BUSSING, 
CORNELIUS C. DEMAREST, 
PETER DONALD, 
ROBERT DORSETT, 
WILLIAM H. DUNNING, 
JAMES S. FRANKLIN, 
WILLIAM C. GIFFING, 
DAVID GILLESPIE, 
JOHN GRAHAM, 
STEPHEN HASBROUCK, 
DANIEL HOWELL, 
WILLIAM P. HOWELL, 
DANIEL P. INGRAHAM, 
GEORGE T. JACKSON, 
PETER A. H. JACKSON, 
ALEXIS A. JULIEN, 
CALVIN E. KNOX, 



HENRY E. KNOX, 
JOHN LABAGH, 
FREDERICK T. LOCKE, 
FRANCIS T. LUQUEER, 
EBENEZER MONROE, 
ELBERT B. MONROE, 
EDWARD A. MORRISON, 
NEILSON OLCOTT, 
JAMES PHYFE, 
WILLIAM B. RUNK, 
SAMUEL B. SCHIEFFELIN, 
GAMALIEL G. SMITH, 
GEORGE SMITH, 
JOHN L. SMITH, 
GEORGE S. STITT, 
HENRY SNYDER, 
HENRY VAN ARSDALE, 
JAMES VAN BENSCHOTEN, 
JOHN VAN NEST, 
ABRAHAM V. W. VAN VECHTEN, 
JASPER T. VAN VLECK, 
CHARLES VAN WYCK, 
EVERARDUS B. WARNER, 
PETER R. WARNER, 
WILLIAM WOOD, 
CHARLES H. WOODRUFF, 
JOHN S. WOODWARD, 
WALLACE P. WILLETT. 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. 1 3 



"JProfppbings in f|p 3£ffprnoon* 



These were eo.ndueted preeiselt) in aeeorrlanee 
with the t0n0u;ing: ptugramme^ 



14 



Quarter-Millennial Anniversary of tlie 



^Programme for Jflcnioon Sertrttc. 



Bev. Milliani l5)i|mi8ton, l^^.B. , pi|esiding, 



■t ;4livv.vt.v.Yti ("^fiiaise @od ftjom whom) j- ((^aiji i-i j jt) 
1 gfl.\0l(J9tl ^ all blessings flow," j ^unc, "l|)ld Hundred " 



2 ^UtllCm "!:$) (pod, when ^hou appeaiiest." ^lozaijt 



3 ^alirtUf^ |i(^atUn0 by Hev.Mm. 1. Campbell, B.:t-^. f |2i°' 



^ gniy^j: 



by lev. S5. ^. ^tJutton, B.B. 



S ftymw 92^ 



June, "^t. iVnns" 



I. Our God, our help in ages past, 
Our hope for years to come, 
Our shelter from the stormy blast, 
And our eternal home : 



3. Time, like an ever-rolling stream, . 
IJears all its sons away; 
They fly, forgotten, as a dream 
Dies at the openmg day. 



2. Before the hills in order stood, 
Or earth received her frame, 
From everlasting Thou art God, 
To endless years the same. 



4. Our God, our help in ages past. 
Our hope for years to come, 
Be Thou our guard while troubles last, 
And our eternal home ! 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. 1 5 



^rognnnmc for Afternoon cf crbttt. 



6 fti.StOVical ^\$tiS\\X$t by Bev. Thomas 33. Vm|milyc, BJ?). 

7 ftpm S59 - - - t^unc, " $t. (j;hon.a8 " 

1. I love Thy kingdom, Lord, 3. If e'er to bless Thy sons 

The house of Thine abode, My voice or hands deny. 

The church our blest Redeemer saved These hands let useful skill forsake, 
With His own precious blood. This voice in silence die. 

2. I love Thy church, O God ! 4. If e'er my heart forget 

Her walls before Thee stand, Her welfare or her woe, 

Dear as the apple of Thine eye, Let every joy this heart forsake, 

And graven on Thy hand. And every grief o'erflow. 

5. For her my tears shall fall, 

For her my prayers ascend ; 
To her my cares and toils be given 
Till toils and cares shall end. 

8 fiallcUljlTlt (!lharu.5i - - - Beethoven 

to ^^tt^rtidiOtt bn Bev. %. m. Moodbrklge, :)^.:JD. jsem.nary Tet 

*■ — J "^ ^^ . t) ' ( Brunswick, N.J. 

Music will lie under the direction of Dr. S. Austen Pearce. 

Mr. W. E. Beames will preside at Organ. 



Protestant Reformed Di4tch CkurcJi. 1/ 



MfFPnoon jSpptiirp, 



^t three a'elach the liieu. Br. 0rmistan taak 
the ehair, and after the appointed masical and 
deuotional services had heen rendered, made 
the foUaitjing: remarhs intraduotanj to the xlis- 
eaurse af the necasian. 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. 1 9 



DR. ORMISTON'S REMARKS. 



For a nation, church or family to commemorate 
marked events and special periods in their past 
history is as instinctively natural as it is eminently 
profitable. To recall with reverence and pride the 
moral worth, the noble deeds, and the heroic endur- 
ance of a devout, faithful and valorous ancestry is not 
more grateful than it is dutiful. Such an exercise is 
fitted to quicken piety, deepen gratitude, inspire 
patriotism, and stimulate to high and emulous en- 
deavor. 

Of late, in all parts of our land, centennial celebra- 
tions have been frequent and various, connected with 
events relating to the independence of the country 
and the formation of its o-overnment. Doubtless these 
services have availed much in deepening the senti- 
ments of patriotism and reverence in the hearts of the 
people. 

Many churches, also, have taken a retrospective 
survey of their origin and progress, with a view to 
fresher effort for greater achievements in the future. 

This is the purpose of our assembly to-day. We 



20 Ouartc]--M}llciiiiial Aiuiivi'rsary of the 

propose reverently and gratefully to refer to the or- 
ganization and history of a congregation whose origin 
is coeval with the first settlement of the country, and 
antedates the founding of our city. It is probably the 
only Protestant church organization in the United 
States which has attained its two hundred and fiftieth 
year. 

Shortly after the exploration of the Hudson by the 
adventurous navigator whose name it bears, emigrants 
from Holland, then a powerful state and the home of 
civil and religious liberty, came to the Island of. Man- 
hattan and the banks of the Hudson for purposes of 
trade. They brought with them an open Bible and 
religious ordinances, and were the first evangelists in 
the state. 

Their interesting story will be eloquently told by 
my revered colleague, the senior pastor of the church, 
to whom, with great propriety, that duty has been 
assigned. 

I would only further say, that, without detracting in 
the slightest decree from the merits and services of 
other early settlers and churches, we may, with perfect 
sincerity and becoming modesty, claim, for our Dutch 
forefathers, a prominent place in establishing the civil 
and religious institutions of this republic. 

The Reformed Protestant Church of the Nether- 
lands, whence they came, was characterized by a sound 
scriptural orthodoxy and a liberal, enlightened charity. 
Steadfast in principle and catholic in spirit, her rela- 



Protestant Reformed Dutch CImrch. 2 1 



tions with the churches of Great Britain were intimate 
and friendly. The persecuted of other countries 
sought a refuge in that land and received a cordial 
welcome from the church. Freedom of conscience 
was the common privilege of all — citizen and stranger 
alike. The Pilgrim Fathers themselves, whose fre- 
quent eulogiums are well merited, found there a home, 
and a school where they learned much concernino- the 
management of both civil and ecclesiastical affairs, 
which gready affected their views and policy in mould- 
ing the institutions of the new world where they 
found a permanent home. 

We may be honesdy proud of the founders and 
fathers of our venerable church. Faithful in their 
adherence to scriptural doctrine and the rights of con- 
science — insisting on an educated ministry for the 

church and good common schools for the children 

staunch and daundess in the maintenance of civil 
freedom and free insdtudons — industrious, fruo-al and 
home-loving in their habits, they were fit founders of 
the insdtutions of a new land, and worthy ancestors 
of a free, God-fearing posterity. Direcdy and indi- 
recdy we owe them much, and we lovingly revere 
their memory. 

Nor would I claim too much were I to say that, 
though we may differ from our honored ancestors in 
many things, yet as a church we still retain the same 
love for the truth of God, and the same zeal for its 
maintenance, defence and extension ; and sustain to- 



22 Quarter-Millennial Ainiii'crsary of the 



wards all other evang-elical churches the same loving, 
brotherly regards. 

Holding the same system of doctrine — maintaining" 
the same ecclesiastical polity — observing the same 
customs with but little variation, and evincing the 
same spirit of christian catholicity, the Reformed 
Church of to-day exhibits many lineaments which un- 
mistakably indicate her hereditary family likeness. 
Cherishing tenaciously her own time-honored customs, 
she profoundly respects the conscientious convictions 
and established practices of all sister churches, with 
whom she seeks to live in the unity of the Spirit, as 
children of the same Father, and servants of the same 
King. May our precious heritage be the inheritance 
of our children. 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. 23 



DR. VERMILYE'S DISCOURSE, 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 



The speaker prefaced the address with the follow- 
ing remarks : " I have received many visits, and a 
number of letters from various quarters, which show 
the profound interest everywhere taken in this anni- 
versary. One of these is from a lady in Philadelphia, 
whose possession of the time-honored prefix 'Van,' 
vouches for her rip-ht to send a letter of concrratula- 
tion. I have also here a copy of the charter, granted 
by William III, in 1696, to 'the minister, elders and 
deacons of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of 
the City of New York.' Among the incorporators are 
names still found among us — William Beekman and 
Jacob Kip. 

"I hold in my hand — (Dr. V. exhibited a handsome 
gold-headed cane) — an interesting memorial, pre- 
sented in commemoration of this occasion by one who 
is a Van of the Vans. It is made of a piece of the 
wood used in the construction of the old North 
Church in William Street, recently taken down, and 



24 Quartcr-HIillcnnial Ainiivcrsary of the 

within the top is placed a thimbleful of the soil of the 
Netherlands mingled with a little earth taken from 
the spot where the first Dutch Church on this conti- 
nent was planted, thus aptly symbolizing, as the donor 
happily expresses it, the union of the two countries in 
the commingling of their soils. Upon the head is 
engraved the name of Dr. Vermilye, and upon the 
sides those of Drs. Chambers and Ormiston, with the 
years 1628, 1728. I shall keep it and prize it dearly 
till I die." 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. 25 



DISCOU RSE. 



We meet by the invitation of " The Consistory of tlie 
Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of the City of New 
York," to commemorate the 250th Anniversary of its 
existence — the Mother of the Dutch Churches in this City, 
and, in a sense, of the entire denomination: of regularly 
organized churches the eldest, we believe, of the Protestant 
family on the continent : the forerunner, commissioned like 
the Baptist in the wilderness, to herald on the shores of the 
newly discovered world the sublime command, " Prepare 
ye the way of the Lord : make straight in the desert a 
highway for our God." The occasion appeals naturally to 
the sympathies, not of the people of this particular congrega- 
tion or of our communion only, but to the descendants of 
the Dutch wherever and in whatever religious connexion 
they may be found ; to our fellow christians of every name ; 
no less to the student of history, the man of letters, the 
patriot who is interested in the development of the state ; 
to every one who intelligently notes the march of events, and 
hopes and believes in human advancement. The Consistory 
has assigned to me the duty and the honor of giving the 
commemorative discourse. And without delaying upon 
the " cxordiinii reuiotiini " of our ancient form, and without 
formal approach by rhetorical preliminaries, I pass at once 
to the subject before us. 

Of the people who early settled this continent from the 
various parts of Europe, two, or rather three, nationalities 
were especially present. And these, let it be marked, were 
the most advanced in ciyil liberty, and the most determined 
defenders of the Protestant faith : the English, who first 
settled Virginia, but afterwards were more largely represented 



26 Quarter-Millennial Anniversary of the 

by the Puritans of New England ; and the Dutch, who 
founded Manhattan, spread along the Hudson as far as 
Albany, west into New Jersey and down upon the Delaware. 
With subsequent immigrations came the Huguenots in con- 
siderable numbers, flying from the fiery persecutions in France. 
And, although companies of them located in Maine and 
Massachusetts, where their names and some interesting relics 
still exist ; and others found a home in and about Charleston, 
South Carolina, and are yet represented there by worthy 
descendants — the largest portion established themselves in 
this region. Their social and flexible character caused them 
easily to assimilate and become one with the Dutch, while 
they in turn exerted a very happy influence upon the people 
with whom they mingled ; and to this day, places and families 
among the most noted and honored in the land, bearing 
Huguenot names, attest the excellent quality of that element 
in the formation of our social, and religious, and political life. 
But from Holland came the founders of our Cit}- and 
State : " our Alban Fathers and the walls of lofty Rome." 
It is a singular territory. There, man, under the most un- 
propitious conditions, in the words of the poet, has " scooped 
out an empire and usurped the shore." It lies on the border 
of the sea — almost /// the sea — opposite the south-east coast 
of England ; and has been formed evidently by the detritus of 
the rivers, the Rhine especially, brought down even from the 
high Alps, and by the sand thrown up from the abyss of the 
ocean ; originally a morass, which the tide overflowed, and 
which no sagacity could have predicted would become dry 
land fit to be inhabited ; the accretions of ages and persistent 
skill have brought it forth. The rivers have flowed on and 
left their deposits ; the ocean has piled up the sand for soil, 
and pebbles and stones which formed the downs ; and by 
vast labors of man they have become a solid bulwark against 
the farther encroachment of the waters, securing a safe and 
commodious hs^bitation. Many parts lie much below the level 
of the sea, protected from inundation only by the dykes. And 
it was very exciting in riding through the beautiful park at 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. 27 



' Rotterdam, to pass along the base of this wall and see sea- 
going steamers and ships, of the largest bulk, at anchor 
apparently more than a hundred feet directly above us. The 
dyke was the only protection. And as I gazed, I realized 
the grandeur of the divine interdict, " Hitherto shalt thou 
come and no farther: and here shall thy proud waves be 
stayed." Much of the soil thus recovered from the sea, with 
incredible toil and cost, would be thought too poor to 
recompense the husbandman. But the patient industry of 
a free people, expended upon it for centuries, has made it 
productive almost beyond imagination. And those parts 
recovered directly from the ocean, and at first but sand, were 
made among the most productive of all. Everywhere rich 
vegetation appeared. Populous and thriving cities grew up 
like lodcfes in a o-arden of delifrhts. The canals also, so 
readily constructed and supplied with water, became an easy 
means of internal communication ; like the blood vessels of 
the human system conveying life and vigor throughout the 
corporate body. 

But besides its agricultural character, and perhaps almost 
by a natural necessity, from its proximity to the sea, Holland 
became a maritime power. Its hardy sons were trained to 
face the storms and breast the billows of every ocean, and 
bring home the treasures of " the gorgeous East and the open- 
ing West." Thus by the operation of natural causes and the 
persistent labor of an energetic race was the country gradually 
prepared for a high destiny. Small in size — scarcely appear- 
ing upon the geographical map of Europe — and most un- 
promising at the beginning, instead of remaining a sterile 
and desolate shore, where only the fisherman spread his nets, 
it has supported in abundance and happiness a greater number 
of people in proportion to its area, than any other country 
on the globe. Other lands needed but to be cleared for 
occupation — this to be created. Its existence show^s how 
intelligent, untiring industry, against almost insuperable diffi- 
culties, can make "the desert blossom like the rose." As its 
history will likewise teach us what man himself may become 



28 Quarter-Millennial Anniversary of the 

under the pressure of great and urgent necessities. I am 
reminded of a pleasant anecdote told by the late Hermanus 
Bleecker. When he was minister near the Hague, he was 
accompanied on one occasion by a gentleman of high position, 
to the top of the main church in Amsterdam, from which 
one might take in at one view almost the entire seven 
provinces. As they looked around, the gentleman exclaimed 
with great animation and pardonable pride, "we are a small 
territory, Mr. Bleecker, l)ut we are a great people." 

And in truth their history is even more remarkable than 
the physical characteristics of the country. As far back as 
authentic records penetrate, the people of the Low Countries, 
/. e. of the northern provinces, which we intend when we 
speak of Holland, as distinguished from the Highlands, to 
which the country rises from the sea on the east and the 
south, and whose inhabitants were originally from a different 
stock and have always showed somewhat different traits — from 
the earliest annals the people of the lowlands have borne one 
character: simple, frugal, honest, patient of toil; intelligent 
rather than imaginative ; not propense to war, yet indomita- 
bly bold, full of endurance, and prompt to maintain their 
liberty and rights. Their local situation would seem to 
indicate that the peaceable occupations of agriculture and 
commerce were their natural destiny. Enterprise would be 
expended in trade for the acquisition of wealth rather than 
in the pursuit of military renown, the extension of territory, 
or the enlargement of power. Yet no country in Europe 
has been so often the theatre of sanguinary wars — not of her 
own seeking, but in defense of her soil ; or, as the convenient 
battle ground of her neighbors where their common liberty 
was vindicated. And their endurance and successes are the 
astonishment of the world. It would seem as if an invading 
army might march over the level land almost without resist- 
ance. But Caesar's trained legions were boldly met and 
checked by the intrepid Belgae. Voy eighty years the conflict 
was prolonged with Spain, the strongest power in Europe. 
There William of Orange, in the spirit of his memorable 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Churcli. 29 



motto :"/ 7C'/// viaintain ; I zcill hold on;'' now beaten, and 
then victorious, kept the French at bay ; and Marlborough 
succeeding him, at length foiled their best armies until the 
Grand Monarque was ruined by the struggle. They had 
conquered the land from the ocean ; they held it against all 
comers. And Holland achieved the glory of a nation of 
heroes ; as by her commerce she subsidized the east and the 
west, gathered their wealth into her treasury and became the 
richest people in the world. So was it with the Queen of 
the Adriatic. And in many respects the history of these 
two most singular countries is not dissimilar. 

But Holland was not merely a field of arms, or a nation 
of traders. She became also the chosen seat" of learning. The 
education of the young was carefully regarded. An evidence 
of a very interesting character survives in the school of our 
church, still flourishing as ever, under Mr. Dunshee, its able 
principal; the first literary institution probably in the country; 
established in 1626, and the teachers brought from Holland 
at that early date. It proves the value the Dutch placed on 
right education. Their universities, Utrecht and Leyden es- 
pecially, were among the foremost in a learned age. Men 
of renown filled the professorial chairs, and students came 
from all parts. The founding of the university at Leyden 
rises to moral sublimity. When, by the unconquerable bold- 
ness of her sons, the tide of Spanish invasion had been rolled 
away, the Prince of Orange, in remembrance and acknowledg- 
ment of their deeds, offered to make Leyden the seat of an 
annual fair which would bring wealth to the city, or of a 
university : and the citizens grandly chose the University. 
There it has stood and stands — the monument of the great 
struggle and of the heroism of their fathers ; but still more 
the monument of their nobility of thought; perpetuating their 
intellectual and moral life : the life of culture, of progress, of 
power, of a free people, which the blood of the sires purchased 
for their sons. Few things are so impressive as to stand, 
as I have done more than once, in its council chamber, and 
recall its origin, and look upon the portraits of scholars and 



30 Quartcr-JSIilloniial Atniivcrsary of tJic 

statesmen, orators and soldiers, whose names are the glory of 
their own land, and whose figures stand boldly out upon the 
historic canvass of the great men of all times. 

The invention of printing, the art of arts, contested by 
several and especially by Gutenberg, of Mentz, belongs 
almost demonstrably to Koster, of Haarlem, about 143S; 
although improved and perfected, it may be, by Gutenberg, 
from models secretly conveyed, it is said, from Koster. 

And it is worthy of note, that the Latin Vulgate was 
probably the first complete printed volume, done by Guten- 
berg, at Mentz, about 1455. In Holland, the press was 
free from censorship, which continued in England as late as 
1694 so that authors interdicted there printed their books 
abroad. Tyndale's translation, 1535, not allowed to be print- 
ed in England, was thus printed abroad and carried back and 
secretly distributed at home. Thus Germany and Holland 
deserve the credit, beyond their age, of just and advanced 
thought and corresponding action, in this great means of 
public enlightenment and progress ; and by its liberal course, 
Holland, in its full measure, became the printing and publish- 
ing house of Europe ; much to its own advantage as well 
as that of letters. Milton would there have found no cause to 
fulminate his grand, indignant sentences, to the men of the 
great commonwealth, on unlicensed printing ; and Locke, as 
late as 1694, would have had no call to utter protests on the 
same subject, happily, the last protests needed in free and 
enlightened England. 

From such causes and the toleration there existing, scholars 
as well as persecuted religionists, and even political refugees, 
long found a safe and quiet asylum in the Low Countries. 
Burnet and Locke, with others, driven from . England, took 
shelter there and freely pursued their studies. These latter 
remarks apply, however, most strictly to the times when and 
after the Republic was inaugurated. The period of her great- 
ness was one of those epochs in which mind seems to be 
uncommonly active, and all the wheels of life roll on with 
uncommon energy. From 1500, onwards, for nearly two 



Protestant Reformed DiitcJi C/uircIi. 31 

centuries, Holland performed the most illustrious part on the 
theatre of events. She seemed the pivot on which Europe 
moved. It was the time of her greatest sufferings, and of her 
meridian splendor. She was the mainspring and seat of 
political negotiations ; the arena of battles ; the mediator of 
peace ; the retreat of the persecuted for conscience sake from 
other lands ; the strength of the weak, and the light-bearer 
of the times. Her statesmen read law to the nations ; her 
warriors fought the battles of freedom and shattered the arm 
of arbitrary power ; her scholars instructed the mind of the 
age ; her divines expounded the faith by which Protestantism 
yet lives. We give this as a true description of Holland's 
place and influence in the time of her maturity; and from this 
land of wonders, from such a stock, at just about the culmi- 
nating point of this great social and national development, 
came the discoverers and first settlers of Manhattan. 

The juncture of time was of most auspicious omen. In 
the year 1609, the long conflict with Spain was suspended at 
the suggestion of Philip III, by a truce for twelve years. The 
indomitable Dutch were reluctant to accept it, so little did 
they bend under their burden — so warlike had they become. 
For during the whole continuance of the struggle they were 
carrying on their commerce and actually augmenting their 
strength. The truce was in reality a confession on the part 
of Spain that she was vanquished, and practically established 
the independence of the United Netherlands. Henceforth, 
Holland was acknowledged among nations as a free, self- 
governing Republic. It was in the very same year that 
Hudson sailed on the voyage which resulted in the discovery 
of the river that bears his name, which he explored to Albany ; 
and in the acljuisition by Holland of the vast region extending 
from the Capes of Delaware to Canada, styled the New 
Netherlands. True, discoveries had already been made by the 
English in Virginia ; the Huguenots in Florida ; the French 
in Acadia, now Canada. But the wide region I have mention- 
ed was yet unknown. The Dutch explored Long Island 
Sound and discovered the Housatonic and Connecticut rivers, 



32 Quarter-Millennial Anjiivcrsary of the 



and rightly claimed the adjoining territory which the English 
wrested from them ; nor were content until they had gorged 
New Amsterdam also. The admirable adaptation of this 
island as a mart of trade with the natives, and of the harbor 
for commerce was quickly understood. In [614, the New 
Netherlands Company was chartered for four years, and made 
» Manhattan a trading port. In 162 1, the West India Company 
was formed to conduct commerce in the west, and Manhattan 
came under their power in fee. And it should never be 
forgotten that the island first held by discovery and occupancy, 
the right of might, was in '1621 fairly purchased from the 
natives, thus admitting their ownership, for twenty-four dollars.* 
The West India Company appointed its own governors 
of the island, and of course its affairs w^ere conducted on 
Dutch principles, as well as by Dutch men. The principles 
were integrity and strict honor ; the men righteous and often 
dogmatical governors. 

Hitherto I have not spoken of Religion. It was not to be 
imagined that a people so reflective and earnest should be 
indifferent on such a subject either at home or in their colonies. 
Always. their national life had been invigorated by religious 
faith. When, then, the Reformation arose, it was a thing of 
course that the new movement, which upheaved the founda- 
tions of society in the nations around, should at once awaken 
deep interest and sympathy in Holland, and that the sim- 
plicity of form and purity of doctrine of the new teachers, 
when once understood, should be preferred by very many to 
the corrupt teachings and elaborate and sensuous ceremonial 
of Popery. And they had the charm of novelty. But there 
was a special cause which, beyond question, had great influence 
in confirming this feeling. The nation with* which they 

* Our honored president of the Historical Society has made a curious calcula- 
tion that by this time, computing interest, the $24 would reach a sum almost 
beyond the power of figures. It brings to mind an incident in the early history of 
Massachussetts, when a large portion of the town of West Springfield, one of the 
most beautifnl parts of the Connecticut river, was '■' sivapped'''' for a wheelbarrow. 
What that barrow would be worth at this time (in fiat money) I cannot say. 
But it should Ijc an Alpine heap. 



Protestant Refonned Dutch CJiurch. 33 

warred, their cruel and relentless oppressor, was Catholic : 
who forbade all freedom of action and even of thought upon 
religious subjects ; who had pursued them in ferocious war 
on that account ; whose determined purpose it had been 
for eighty years to force Popery upon them with its hellish 
inquisition, its servility and chains. They had resisted unto 
blood in maintaining the better part; and it had the power 
over them of dearly purchased right. The system they chose, 
however, was not derived from Germany, as might have been 
expected, but from France or Geneva. They became Calvin- 
ists and Presbyterians — not Lutherans — and that was the form 
they introduced into the colony. The precise time of planting 
the church here was also significant. It was not only at the 
period of Holland's supremacy, in social elegance, in learning, 
in jurisprudence and politics ; but it was during the agita- 
tions attendant upon and succeeding the sitting of the celebra- 
ted Synod of Dort : a fact which very discernably exerted an 
influence upon the church of the colony, as it did upon all 
the interests of church and state at home. Of that famous 
Synod let us then say a few words. It was convoked by the 
States General ; was composed of delegates from the several 
provinces; and from the foreign churches ; the Church of 
England included, and only the French Reformed absent, by 
the interdict of their king. It met at Dort on the 13th of 
November, 16 18, and was called to consider and settle the 
theological controversy which arose from the teachings of 
James Arminius, professor of theology at Leyden, which 
were opposed by Francis Gomarus, likewise professor. Hence 
the parties were designated as Arminians and Gomarists ; but 
from a remonstrance presented by the minority, they were 
also more generally known as remonstrants, who were the 
Arminians, and contra-remonstrants, who were Gomarists or 
Calvinists — and certainly of the straighter sort. It was sub- 
stantially the old controversy of Augustine and Pelagius, and 
later of the Semi-Pelagians. It was before Augustine; for of 
such controversies, whether of form or substance, it may be 
truly said, there is nothing new under the sun ; nor was it 



34 Quarter-Mill omial A]inivcrsary of tlie 



finally disposed of in his time. And although the points in 
issue were thoroughly discussed at Dort, it was not then termi- 
nated ; and we ma)^ predict it never will be to the universal 
agreement of minds tha't think, as free minds will think, from 
different positions upon different lines. The more imperative 
the reason for toler3.nce and charity. The Synod held 152 
sessions, and was dissolved in May, 1619 : the president 
declaring that" its miraculous labors had made hell tremble ; " 
a prominent member saying that in that Synod " there were 
some things divine ; some things human ; and some things 
diabolical." The proportions Jiowever not precisely stated. 
Anterior to the meeting of the Synod the matters in dispute 
had convulsed the universities and churches and families, and 
involved the peace of the state. Nor did the decisions of the 
Synod which were on the side of the Calvinists, they being 
the majority, allay the storm. Alas ! that such dire effects 
should flow from such causes. Yet this is human nature. 
And all history teaches that the wildest excitements and the 
fiercest wars, have sprung up on just such apparently inappro- 
priate grounds. I do not think that they who most cordially 
adopt the theological conclusions of the Synod are bound, 
at this day, to defend the spirit which, for a large part, anima- 
ted its leaders. In many of their utterances and deeds they 
manifested anything but christian meekness and were vindic- 
tive and cruel. But private interests became deeply implicated, 
and passions were embittered and furious. And, in judging the 
case, candor bids us remember that Calvinism was the long 
settled creed of Holland — that the Arminians were the ag- 
gressors — that in the pulpits and even in the theological 
chairs they persisted, contrary to earnest expostulation in 
teaching doctrines which the Calvinists sincerely believed not 
only to be contrary to the standards, but subversive of the 
faith delivered to the saints. And the experience they had 
had in the Catholic church, showed them the power of ideas 
to corrupt ; made them more intense in their beliefs ; and 
warned them against principles which they imagined led by 
logical sequence, to some of the worst errors of Rome. They 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. 35 

may have been wrong, but, no doubt, they were sincere. 
The question involved is a very plain one. It is not whether 
men shall teach and act according to their convictions, but 
whether it is honest and to be tolerated, that they shall use 
the advantages of position and emoluments they have received 
on specific conditions, to undermine and overthrow sentiments 
and institutions they solemnly pledged themselves to uphold. 
And he has read very superficially, who has not learned that 
heresiarchs, while unchallenged, easily to their own satisfaction 
reconcile their defections from the old paths with rectitude ; 
particularly if their interests are concerned. Sometimes, no 
doubt, it is because they do not fairly realize how far they have 
deflected from the right line ; but oftener, probably, because 
self-opinion stands for divine illumination, and they imagine 
they have been elected by supernal wisdom to pour light upon 
the darkness of all preceding ages. That one's convictions 
run counter to the principles or practices of an association is a 
very good reason why he should not enter or should leave it ; 
but a very bad reason that he should enter or remain in bad 
faith to subvert what he is appointed to defend. Arminians are 
apt to look only on their side, and then the Synod of Dortwas 
an unparalleled atrocity, and its theology necessarily unsound. 
So, a class of religionists seem to see on the long, dark page 
of martyrology, but one sentence: "Calvin burned Servetus." 
That easy but false formula, they would have us think, refutes 
Calvinism, and demon.strates Socinianism. Happily a brighter 
light has dawned or a better .spirit has come to our times — 
not we would hope from mere laxness of conviction but a 
widening of intelligence and love — and a rigid Calvinist may 
now believe, without incurring the penalty, de hcvretico coinbu- 
reudo, that an Arminian can be saved. 

But that Synod was not all polemical and diabolical. 
Many measures were adopted for the advancement of practical 
religion, having no connexion with controversy. A new 
translation of the Bible was likewise directed : a work begun 
on the order of the States by S. Aldegonde as early as 1594, 
and discontinued at his death. Six eminent scholars were 



36 Qiiartcr-Millciuiial A)iiiivcrsary of the 

appointed as translators, and six substitutes, in case of the 
failure of the translators, of whom two died during the progress 
of the work. A company of final revisers was also appointed ; 
all most approved scholars. The translators and their families 
were collected at Leyclen, and supported at the public expense ; 
and after the most careful elaboration, the work was finished 
and printed in 1637, at a cost to the States General of twenty- 
five thousand pounds sterling, and ordered to be usecl in the 
churches. The translation has been as highly prized by the 
Dutch, as our English version, which came into use about 
the same time, has been cherished by the English speaking 
race ; and the notes and comments of the translators, also pub- 
lished, are held in high estimation by Biblical scholars. 

I may be excused for having enlarged upon this Synod, 
for it supplied the theological life-blood of the Dutch church, 
which yet has not all run out. 

Although the advent of the colonists to Manhattan was 
in those troublous times, they were not fugitives, as were the 
Huguenots, from Popish, or the Puritans from Protestant 
persecution. They belonged to the ruling party in the Mother 
Country, and brought with them, as a thing of course, the 
established church order and the Calvinistic creed, and some- 
what perhaps of the spirit of the contra-remonstrants. And 
that creed, symbolized in the Heidelberg CatccJiisin, adopted 
at a Synod of Dort as early as 1574, and re-affirmed by the 
celebrated Synod in 1619, has ever prevailed in the Dutch 
churches in this country. As the Synod stamped it with the 
seal of orthodoxy, the immigrants held it fast as living truth ; 
the more that great and holy men had so strenuously con- 
tended for it at home. This will account, in measure at least, 
for the steady adherence of the Dutch church among ourselves 
to its doctrines while conceding to others full liberty in their 
own communions. Just as in Holland all fugitives found a 
refuge ; but she would tolerate no faithlessness in her own 
church. 

Wise policy as well as just principle directed the West 
India Company to supply their trading posts and colonies with 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. 37 



the means of education and religion — and such provision, we 
are assured, from the first was made for Manhattan. We 
know that in 1626 two pious school masters came over with 
Director Minuet. Their duty, besides instructing the youth in 
secular learning, was to conduct religious services on the 
sabbath day, by reading the Scriptures, the creed and a 
sermon ; (much like the deacons' meetings in New England) ; 
and they were to minister to the sick until such time as an 
ordained minister should be provided. From the latter duty 
they were called " Ziekoi-troosters," i. c. Comforters of the 
sick. Until recently, it was thought that the first ordained 
minister was the Reverend Everardus Bogardus, who came 
with Governor. Wouter Van Twiller in 1633 ; and that he 
organized the church in that year. But a letter discovered by 
Mr. Murphy when he was minister at the Hague, written by 
the Rev. Jonas Michaelius, says, he " arrived at the Island of 
Manhattan the nth of August, 1628;" and adds: "we first 
established the form of a church ; and it has been thought 
best to choose two elders for my assistance ; one of them is 
the Hon. Director himself We had at the first administration 
of the Lord's supper full fifty communicants — Walloons and 
Dutch." This was five years before the arrival of Dominie 
Bogardus; and fixes the origin of the church in 1628; which 
date will make the Dutch, the oldest organized Protestant 
church in the New World. At least I am not aware of any 
earlier regular organized body. And the primitive organiza- 
tion lives in the collegiate church — " whose were the fathers" — 
which retains the title ; the charter ; the unbroken succession of 
the ministry and consistory ; the records from the beginning ; 
and the property from time to time bequeathed to the 
^' Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of the City of New York " 
— at least so much as remains. Of these funds a liberal use 
has always been made by the consistory for the benefit of 
other churches and for objects of general utility to the denomi- 
nation. I think I am justified in saying that, excepting for 
the building of their church edifices, a very liberal proportion, 
compared with their own expenditures, has been thus dispensed 



38 Quarter-Millefinial Aiudvcrsary of the 



in past times to their brethren. Whether such aid does not often 
injure, by impairing the feehng of self-reliance, is a serious doubt. 
The ruling- power of each Dutch church is in the consist- 
ory — for it is Presbyterian and representative, and not Con- 
gregational. The ministers, elders and deacons, compose the 
consistory : the minister, according to apostolical commission, 
to preach, administer ordinances and exercise the pastoral 
supervision ; the elders to assist him in spiritual matters, but 
not to preach or administer the sacraments ; the deacons, as 
at the first, to attend to the poor and serve tables. Thus we 
see in each church a regular order. From the letter of 
Michaelius we learn that he ordained two elders. Necessarily 
that organization was imperfect. But as the church grew in 
numbers, it at length assumed its normal form of consistories, 
classes, particular and general Synods — a complete system for 
the denomination — and thus it is at present constituted. Ac- 
cording to the ancient rules, to the consistories pertained the 
control of temporal as well as spiritual matters, as now in 
most of our churches. But several years ago, in courtesy to 
the popular craving for a share of whatever office or power 
may exist, authority was granted by legislative enactments in 
this State, to commit the temporalities to a Board of Trustees, 
elected by the pew-holders. This practice has been adopted 
in some of our churches, but is by no means generally accepted. 
A peculiarity of Dutch, as compared with Scotch or Irish 
Presbyterianism, is the rotation of the lay members of con- 
sistory. Their election for two years, instead of for life, 
although eligible to re-election, is thought to possess these 
advantages : that a larger number of the male members may 
become interested in the affairs of their, church, and thus a 
Board of Trustees is superfluous ; and also, that a troublesome 
or unqualified member may be quietly dropped — a great bless- 
ing often to pastors, consistories and people. 

Our church, both here and in the Mother Country, has 
always demanded an educated ministry, and has shown no 
inclination to be long satisfied with sound for substance, 
ranting for reason, or professions for piety. The first preachers 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. 39 



were men of solid parts, imbued with the excellent learning 
that at that day abounded in Holland. It was long the 
custom and for a time a necessity for the churches in the 
colony, not only to obtain their ministers from the Mother 
Country, but, also, to send thither young men of promise, 
desiring the ministry, to be educated and ordained. Utrecht 
and Leyden received such from all parts. Alas ! how changed ! 
Three years ago, when at Leyden, a learned professor informed 
me that of the 800 students, but eight were pursuing theology. 
And, with a meaning glance, he was at the pains to tell me 
that the theologues were the stoutest Darwinians in the 
University. If so,, the fewer their numbers the better. At 
Utrecht there were somewhat more. Heidelberg had about 
the same small number. And from good authority I learned 
that reverence for the inspired word was much diminished by 
the influence of modern ideas, called science, and that personal 
religion seemed at a low ebb. Dr. Livingston settled here in 
1770, more than 150 years after Manhattan was founded, 
having spent four years at Utrecht, in preparation for his 
work. He was one of the last, or the last, so educated, and 
brought the Holland mode of preaching by logical, orderly, 
but, perhaps, too precise and numerous divisions ; and when 
made professor at New Brunswick, he used the Holland style 
of theological tuition — the much spoken of " Classis argu- 
mcutoruui ; " systematic, thorough as far as it went ; dry as a 
bone, but really teaching theology, and vastly to be preferred 
to a hap-hazard method that teaches nothing. The Dutch 
descent and Dutch training of Dr. Livingston, no doubt, 
conduced very largely to his popularity among his people. 
He occasionally preached in that language for the comfort of 
some of the aged ; but Dr. Kuypers was the last who did 
so. The connexion of New Amsterdam, as it was then 
named, with Holland, had much relaxed after it passed under 
English sway in 1664 and became New York. Many returned 
home and few came. Intercourse was much with England ; 
little with Holland. The colony was estranged, though not 
alienated. And while at the transfer, all the rights of the 



40 Qiiaytcr-jMillejiiiial Ainiivcrsary of the 



Dutch church were secured by treaty, and the language 
continued in use in social life and in religious services, yet 
English being that of the ruling class, of course, encroached 
upon and gradually supplanted the Dutch. Hence, arose the 
strife, chiefly between the young and the old people, in regard 
to a change to English preaching ; which, when yielded and 
determined by the calling of Dr. Laidley in 1764, just one 
hundred years from the English occupation, sent off a large 
portion of the opponents of English preaching with true Dutch 
spunk and admirable consistency to the English church. 
In like manner, the foreign education of the ministry and de- 
pendence of the churches upon the classis of Amsterdam, led 
to the CiVtHS and Coifcroitie controversy, which resulted in the 
final independence of the American churches and ministry, and 
in the establishment of our own Classes, and of the Institution at 
New Brunswick. It was not strange that the Dutch language 
and customs declined : rather it was perfectly characteristic 
and highly creditable to the steady people, that their attach- 
ment to Holland, its language and whatever was Dutch should 
have lingered among them so long, under such adverse cir- 
cumstances. Yet, natural as it was, no one can now doubt, 
that the pertinacity it assumed at several junctures, was injur- 
ious to the church ; as there can be as little doubt that a too 
facile yielding to innovations in more recent times, has been 
equally disastrous. 

The pastors of the Collegiate church have always been on 
an equality, excepting the deference which christian and gen- 
tlemanly courtesy has yielded to the senior. Until quite lately 
they performed in rotation the same services in all the 
churches. They wore, and continue to wear, the Geneva gown 
and bands, in which costume they were accustomed to walk 
from their dwellings to the church on the sabbath-day. As 
that practice might now be thought to savor of ostentation, it 
is discontinued, and the ministers are robed in the vestry. 
With the portraits of the ministers the walls of the consistory 
chamber are adorned ; I say adorned ; for really they form a come- 
ly and intellectual-featured gallery, not speaking of the living. 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Chnrcli. 41 



The public worship was arranged of course in conformity 
with that of the mother church. The order became a part of 
the constitution, and was made obhgatory, so as to secure a 
proper uniformity throughout the denomination, and was not 
left to the taste, or want of taste, or caprice of individual 
ministers or congregations, which destroys the similitude of 
the service and ensures disorder. There was sufficient form to 
engage reverential attention and not allow religion to be 
stripped bare ; yet there was not so much formality that it be- 
came perfunctory and exhausted devotion in rites and ceremo- 
nies. The psalmody was also fixed by law. In church the 
elders sat in the pew on the right, the deacons on the left of the 
pulpit. At the close of the service, when the minister descended, 
they stood to receive him, and each gave the right hand of fel- 
lowship and approval. The clerk, in his desk beneath the pulpit, 
opened the morning service by reading the commandments 
and announcing the psalm to be sung, when the organ pealed 
forth and the whole congregation united in praise. And never, 
I think, in Spurgeon's tabernacle in London, nor in the great 
churches in Holland, have I heard such impressive congrega- 
tional singing as when Mr. Earle led and the vast assemblage 
joined in the old Middle Church, or Mr. Sage in the North. 
While singing the minister entered, stood for a few moments 
reverently at the foot of the pulpit stairs in silent prayer, his 
back to the people, ascended the pulpit and conducted the ser- 
vice. Preceding the second, or long prayer as it is some- 
times termed, came the salutation, reading the S. S. and 
the ''exordium rciiiotiim'' — an address having, as the name 
expressed, a remote, and often a very remote, bearing on the 
subject of the sermon. In the old churches tablets were hung 
upon the walls, indicating the psalm to be read or sung.* 



*Over the pulpit, in the North Church, hung the Harpendinck coat of arms, as 
it was thought to be ; but perhaps, as Dr. DeWitt reasonably thinks, a memorial, 
placed there by the Consistory, in remembrance of the donation of his farm to the 
Consistory — a large tract of land, then a pasturage, now occupied by stores — from 
which has come the most of the property of the Collegiate Church. The motto 
would seem to confirm this idea : '■'■Dando Conscrvat " — "by giving, he keeps." 



42 Quarter-Millennial Anniversary of the 



This was the order still observed in my youth in the old Mid- 
dle and North Churches, so that when in Holland, although I 
understood nothing of the language, the service was not 
strange. And at Haarlem the crowd that collected at the 
cathedral evening service brought vividly to my mind the great 
congregation which, on sabbath evenings, used to fill the old 
Middle Church with people gathered fi-om the various 
churches around. 

On baptismal and communion occasions the entire forms 
were always read. The mother presented the child ; and at the 
Lord's Supper the participants sat at tables spread through the 
aisles, filled frequently three or four times ; and as addresses 
were made at each table the service was often greatly protracted. 
It was also the usage of the Dutch church to observe the day^ 
of special religious memorial : as Christmas, Easter, and those 
commonly observed by the Protestant communities in Europe. 
Nor did they feel that by thus emphasizing the great facts of 
Christianity they were guilty of any obsequious and irreligious 
imitation of mystic Babylon. 

From the first it was required of the ministers that on the 
Lord's day afternoon they should expound the Heidelberg 
CateeJiisni ; going through it once every year. In time this 
custom naturally became repetitious and formal, and lost very 
much of its interest with the people ; and a change was or- 
dained by constitutional authority. When the old Middle 
Church was being dismantled and converted into a post-office, 
Dr. Knox, of sacred and beloved memory, and I, there met 
good Dr. Milner. As we stood in the pulpit, looking on the 
ruin, and recalling the days of old, the years of many genera- 
tions of worshippers in the venerable edifice. Dr. Milner said : 
" do you keep up the custom of preaching on the catechism 
every Sunday afternoon? " " No, Sir;" replied Dr. Knox, in 
his mild tone ; " it has been directed that we shall go through 
it once in four years instead of one." " That is," retorted Dr. 
Milner very pleasantly, " you are obliged to make it four times 
as tedious as before." Yet while the pleasantry was relished, 
and the former custom might have been irksome and a change 



Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. 43 



might have become desirable, it seems a simple dictate of rea- 
son and prudence, that some method should be adopted in all 
churches by which the people may receive distinct and system- 
atic instruction in the evidences and articles of their faith. 
Never, probably, was careful elementary exposition, and a 
clear unfolding of doctrine, more imperative than in what is 
proudly called our enlightened age ; when multiform specu- 
lations of strange import are thrust upon the attention of 
the people ; when preaching on taking themes and in the 
treatment of subjects, seems to aim often at novelty to amuse or 
startle, rather than substance to instruct ; and when vagueness 
of conception exists painfully in the common mind in regard, 
oftenfto some of the first principles of the oracles of God. 
The consequence to be feared is, that many being less rooted 
and grounded in principles than those of farmer times, and 
being unfurnished with tlie armor of God, unguarded by 
the panoply of an intelligent conception of christian doctrine, 
will not readily detect the specious falsehood and may fall 
into pernicious errors. It is said, philosophically, that re- 
ligion is first intuitional and emotional ; and after it so exists, 
it is formulated into a system and becomes theology. The 
scholar may thus theorize if he please. But, practically, 
Christianity exists in the great facts of the Bible alone, which 
are its doctrines, its principles of belief and practice. And 
personal Christianity does not first develop itself from some 
vague sentiment of natural veneration ; it is not a deposit 
from our own reasonings, which crystalize into christian 
conviction ; but so far as it is christian experience, its very 
essence is specific truth revealed in the Bible, received into 
good and honest hearts, and lived in the life. And for this 
end, instruction in the articles of faith is necessary. Any 
other religiousness will prove evanescent, unreliable, dangerous. 
The intuitional and emotional must flow from the Word and 
keep close to it, or it becomes wild fire ; the mother of " all 
monstrous, all prodigious things," under the name of religion, 
it may be, but without " fruit unto life eternal." Christians 
are those who believe in Christ as He is set forth in the 



44 Quarter-Millennial Anni-ocrsary of the 

Gospel. And they should be so instructed as to " give a 
reason of the hope that is in them," because it is a most 
reasonable thing. Hence, in pastoral work, the importance 
of doctrinal preaching. ''Go! teaehf" reads the great com- 
mission : teach those distinctive principles, doctrines which 
are the sinews and strength of the christian revelation. Thus 
will the church become " the pillar and ground of the truth." 
But, indeed, it is not our catechisms, which are now dis- 
credited, but our very Bibles. Instead of, "In the beginning 
God :" the philosopher now reads ; In the beginning, " the 
potentialities of physical forces." Physical science leads the 
age ; and it is very much in the hands of men manifestly 
without religious sympathies inclining them " to look through 
nature up to nature's God ;" or men avowedly or covertly hostile 
to Christianity. It is pure, cold, materialism ; anti-superna- 
tural ; anti-spiritual ; for a large part blank atheism. Yet are 
their speculations no novelties. The universe came, say they, 
and was not created. It fell into beautiful, grand, exquisite 
forms and adaptations, by accident, and not by intelligent 
design. And, mind, the most wonderful existence of all, 
evolved itself out of inert, senseless matter ; and at the moment 
of its appearance was as marvellously endowed in the first 
man as now, and this miraculous power of evolution ended and 
died. Thus the Bible ; our spiritual and immortal being ; moral 
distinctions ; God, heaven, hell, are swept away as without 
authority or utility ; and in a very literal and appalling sense, 
this philosophy proclaims over the departing : " Dust thou 
art and unto dust thou shalt forever return." Even where 
such an extreme of atheism is not reached, this same un- 
believing spirit cavils at the plain interpretation and authority 
of the Bible. It is, says the Judas critic, a good book in 
many respects, but is not in any special setise inspired and 
infallible. Science discredits many of its representations. It 
no longer satisfies the reason of the age. And the history 
and teachings of Jesus Christ, and those of His Apo.stles, must 
be received, explained or rejected, as our new light may 
decide. All idea, however, that the book had a special, su- 



Protestant Rcfonncd Dutch Church. 45. 

pernatural origin, was, in a strict sense, a directly inspired gift 
of God, more than many other writings, is absurd. And you, 
theologians and Christians, had better take the kindly warning 
and not make yourselves ridiculous by insisting upon " old 
wives' fables." But, again, this boasting is not new. So 
Porphyry and Celsus proclaimed the overthrow of Christianity 
in primitive times. So spake the Deists of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, and so the French encyclopedists. And, 
all, singularly enough, with the same assumption and arro- 
gance, and scorn of christian faith, which has ever puffed up 
the infidel objector, as if his cause were already triumphant 
and Christianity put to rout. Yet it has survived, and they 
and their works caused no real impediment to its progress. 
It lives ; its power over the soul is unabridged ; it is cherished 
by growing numbers ; but where are they and their confident 
predictions of its downfall? Not an outpost has been fairly 
carried, and the citadel yet stands impregnable and defiant. 
The truth is, there exists in the human soul, implanted by its 
Maker, a conviction of the supernatural, and of immortality 
and retribution, which the pride of philosophy may silence in 
a few, but which, in the mass of human kind, not all the phi- 
losophy on earth can extinguish. And also of all the religions 
which have appeared, (and religion in some form man cannot do 
without), of all these it is felt that Christianity alone fully meets 
the case. It rests upon its own proper evidence, both external 
and within, and is realized to be reasonable, elevating, satisfying, 
sufficient. His Bible teaches the humble believer a more 
sensible cosmogony than theirs ; his catechism unfolds sublimer 
truths : to them his best reason assents, and scorns the other. 
To his Bible, the catechism of his youth, the faith of his fathers, 
a divine Redeemer and immortal hope through Him, he 
cleaves, against all the wisdom of the wise — which is foolishness 
with God. And the best way to foil the unbeliever and confirm 
the faithful is to keep before the people the direct proofs and 
doctrines of the Bible; at proper times even by simple catecheti- 
cal rehearsal. Hence, the wisdom of the church in making 
some authoritative provision for this end. — The practice of thus 



46 Quarter-Millennial Anniversary of tJie 



keeping the great doctrines of the Bible prominent will also 
serve to correct another tendency of the times, which is to 
reduce religion to a mere philanthropy, and of course to con- 
fine its range very much to this world and physical wants, 
rather than to give it its true scope, the life of God in the soul 
and the life eternal. There is indeed much suffering and sorrow 
which demand tender sympathy and aid, but which no human 
power can remove, and which the spiritual power of the Bible 
alone enables men to support with hopeful submission. And 
those influences will ever prevent the rebellious suicide from 
seeking relief by breaking feloniously into the sacred house of 
life. Poverty and vice, and degradation there are. But they 
are not to be expelled by closing your Bibles, your churches, 
your missions, and sabbath schools, and scattering the wealth 
of the industrious and skillful among the idle or vicious. 
These evils will always exist, but the only assuaging emollient, 
the only panacea, is the elevating power of Christianity, as is 
seen by comparing communities where it operates with those 
from which it is absent. True religion evermore brings forth 
the purest and most sustained philanthropy; but philantropy 
is not all of religion. 

I have pointed out our ecclesiastical origin in the established 
church of Holland. For forty years, the Collegiate was the 
only church in New Amsterdam. At first, 1626, they wor- 
shipped in a large upper room over a horse-mill, which was 
their house of prayer for seven years. In 1633, at the in- 
stigation of Dominie Bogardus, a wooden building was put 
up near what is now the Old Slip ; where they continued to 
worship until 1642, when a new stone edifice was erected in 
the fort, at the south-east corner of the Battery, and this they 
occupied for fifty years, until 1693, when Garden Street was 
opened — although the location had been seriously opposed as 
being too far out of town — which objection has also been 
urged at the erection of each successive new church edifice. 
Until the erection of Garden Street, the rights of the church 
and its property had been held by general laws. But in 
1696, a regular charter was obtained from the Dutch William, 



Protestant Reforified Dutch Church. 47 

a year or two before that of Trinity. And the names of the 
consistory chartered are some Dutch, some Huguenot, still 
found among us. In 1729, the Old Middle, on Cedar and 
Liberty Streets, long called the New Dutch, and since the 
Post Office, was dedicated. And in 1769, the North, corner 
of William and Fulton, then in the fields. Dr. Laidlie 
preached the dedication sermon, and English preaching was 
fully established. The old church in the fort was named St. 
Nicholas, the name of the Dutch tujelary saint, not yet 
forgotten among those of the true lineage. It has not been 
in my plan, however, to relate the details of church erections, 
the lives of the pastors, or minute incidents, occurring through 
the long history of our ecclesiastical existence. That work 
has been done by several hands. Much information will be 
found in Broadhead's History of New York ; in Dunshee's 
History of the School ; in Judge Disosway's volume on The 
Early Churches of Nezv York ; and in the sermon of my late 
revered colleague. Dr. DeWitt, preached at the re-opening of 
the North Church, in August, 1856. This last is so thorough, 
as well as authentic in its gatherings, that scarce a few stray 
sheafs remain wherewith a gleaner may fill his bosom. 

With the increase of trade, and for agricultural objects, the 
colony spread over Manhattan, to Brooklyn, up the river, and 
into New Jersey ; and missions among the Aborigines were 
also established. It has been claimed that the first Dutch 
Church was at Fort Nassau or Orange, now Albany. The 
history of that ancient church is very interesting ; but the 
claim to priority is, I think, without historical foundation. It 
shows, however, that with the Dutch immigrants, religion 
went hand-in-hand with commerce. In process of time, after 
1664, as the colony grew, other types of worship appeared. 
But it should be noticed that, with the exception of a few 
Portuguese Jews who fled to Holland and came here for traffic : 
and with the exception of the Catholics in Maryland, and 
also some Spanish Catholic settlements in the extreme South, 
the whole of eastern North America, now included in the 
United States, was discovered and settled by Protestants. 



48 Quarte7'-I\Iillen)iial Anniversary of tJie 



And it will remain theirs so long, but only so long, as they 
are faithful to the trust of civil and religious freedom, 
extorted from persecuting powers, and confirmed to them as 
by the last will and testament of the martyrs of the cross : 
by "the church under the cross," as that of the early Dutch 
Protestants was significantly named. — In consonance with the 
example of the mother church, ours has always displayed a 
catholic spirit in its intercourse with its neighbors : a spirit by 
no means incompatibie with its love for its own fold. When 
the English took possession, the chaplain of their forces held 
service by invitation in the church at the Fort, as also did Mr. 
Vesey, the first rector. When Garden Street was opened the 
consistory invited him to occupy it part of the day. When 
he was inducted into the rectorship of Trinity, the English 
Governor named two of the Dutch ministers to represent the 
body. On several occasions the consistory has very cordially 
invited our Episcopal brethren to use our church edifices : 
and the Episcopal ministers of the olden time on Sabbath 
evenings attended the Dutch church and sat in the elders' pew, 
as was the custom with our own ministers. Thus was the 
good will expressed, that long united England and Holland 
in ties of mutual advantage and confidence ; which was broken 
from commercial rivalry by Cromwell and the witty and 
vile Charles II, but which was resumed when William of 
Orange drove out the Stuarts and bestowed constitutional 
liberty on England and on America. It has been remarked 
that social considerations greatly influence the church re- 
lations of individuals. And between the Dutch and Epis- 
copalians early intermarriages and the intimate social in- 
tercourse they produced, established a very fraternal feeling, 
which embraced the churches, and which jias not yet been 
lost among their descendants. Indeed, i believe the original 
Dutch families are now more numerously represented in that 
body than in our own. In like manner a cordial, friendly 
feeling and ready co-operation in good works with brethren of 
other evangelical denominations have always prevailed in the 
Dutch Church. Yet her spirit was conservative ; in doctrine ad- 



Reformed Protestant Duteh CJiitreh. 49 

hering to the Calvinism originally professed ; equally removed 
from Antinomianism on one side and Arminianism on the 
other; and in practice inculcating not a dogmatical and 
formal, but spiritual, active piety ; believing in true revivals, but 
opposing the dreams of dreamers and the machinery and ex- 
cesses of fanaticism. She has been less determined than per- 
haps she should have been to "enlarge the place of her tents 
and stretch abroad the curtains of her habitations;" and does 
not at this day occupy so wide a space as early advantages 
promised, and as might well be desired. But this fact is by 
no means to be attributed to her creed or her forms. Many 
adverse causes have been in operation. Naturally the Dutch 
are not aggressive ; yet they have found on their borders some 
of the most aggressive and self-reliant people on the face ot 
the globe, who, in settling the New World, have far outstripped 
them. Again, the persistent use of the Dutch language was 
very detrimental. The changes also, authorized many years 
ago when a new constitution was adopted, introduced the idea 
that she needed greater assimilation to surrounding forms, to 
make her more popular and give her better vantage ground ; 
and that idea, entirely.erroneous as it has appeared to me, has 
brought forth a brood of innovations, not for her own internal 
good, nor for the good she was doing and was qualified to do 
in the general Protestant family and the community at large. 
The Dutch Church had, by inheritance, a name, a history, an 
open Bible, a Protestant faith, an earnestness of spiritual life, 
which gave her the affection and respect of all the Reformed. 
Her worship was orderly and devout; her customs and usages 
consonant with propriety and good taste, and were endeared 
to her people by the tender and sacred associations of childhood 
and antiquity. The Collegiate Church had its own high position 
in the city as the Collegiate Dutch Church. And all voices of 
the past and reasonings toward the future seemed to admonish 
her with concurrent emphasis, to stand on the old paths and re- 
buke novelists, and admit only such changes as the change of 
conditions rendered manifestly imperative. A heedless digging 
at the roots of an ancient oak may strike and sever those fine 



50 Qiiartcr-Millciuiial Anniversary of tJic 

fibers that run far down into the soil and give it its nutriment, its 
leafy glories, its fruit, its long life, and hold it upright and 
steady in its place. And then a slight wind may shake and lay 
low the pride of the forest. Yet the old church is not over- 
thrown. Vital power and large resources she has, and wisely 
directed they will keep her in her proper position of eminence 
and usefulness. "As a teil tree and as an oak whose substance 
is (yet) in them when they cast their leaves, so the holy 
seed is the substance thereof" 

The completion of one-quarter of a thousand years brings 
out an interesting review. The church of the horse-mill has 
been succeeded by nine church erections, most of them large 
and imposing structures. Twenty-eight pastors have officiated 
in the pulpits — five of them still living. Devout men and 
women in large numbers have filled the seats, formerly in not 
a few instances, the same pew being occupied by several gen- 
erations. Nearly twenty-seven thousand children have re- 
ceived baptism. The fifty " Walloons and Dutch," who 
partook of the first Lord's Supper in that upper loft, have 
increased to nearly eleven thousand communicants. And of 
the funds, nearly $400,000 have been given to other churches 
and ministers, chiefly within the present century. Besides 
the direct blessings in the conversion of sinners, and in the 
pure lives, and happy, hopeful deaths of the many pious wor- 
shippers, who can compute the indirect influences exerted by 
such an institution upon the morals, the peace and prosperity 
of the community?" Eternity alone can unroll the record. 
Would that this memorable day might be to us as that day 
when the reading of the long, forgotten law aroused Israel 
to remember God's dealings with their fathers, and to covenant 
anew to walk in his statutes, and observe his ordinances to 
keep them. Then should our altars glow with fresh flames, 
and our churches anew would be filled with the divine presence 
and glory. 

I place myself in imagination upon the tongue of Manhattan 
Island, two hundred and fifty years ago. All nature is clothed 
in the garments it wore at the creation. The rivers roll quietly 



Reformed Protesta?it Dutch Church. 5 i 

on, and the beautiful bay spreads out its waters unruffled, 
excepting as the canoe of the Indian shoots across its bosom. 
But gradually the scene changes. The city rises to view and 
grows, until it becomes the largest of the Western World, the 
great heart of the continent, sending the strong pulsations of 
intellectual, commercial, political, social, religious " life, to the 
remotest extremities. North and South and East and West, 
the vast wildernesses have been cleared away. In place of 
sparse tribes, who made the forests their hunting grounds, 
and the streams their fisheries, appear myriads of the most 
intelligent and enterprising people in the world ; hamlets have 
given place to populous cities, the wigwam to the palace, 
adorned with all that wealth can buy, or taste can create. 
Instead of the whoop of the savage that scared the solitude, 
the roar of machinery and the bustle of untiring industry 
animates the rivers, the great lakes, the plains ; and now, by 
modern inventions, time and space seem annihilated, and the 
North speaks to the South, and the voices on the Atlantic are 
echoed from the Pacific shores. The colonies have passed 
into the greatest Republic the world has known, which is felt 
to be a power" among nations, an essential factor in the ad- 
vancement of the race. The whole primeval wilderness teems 
with civilized men; the wide domain is infused and impelled 
by the thought and principles of Christianity, and a new con- 
tinent is set as a brilliant star in the crown of Im'manuel. 

We turn to the East, and the ocean, over which small 
shallops brought adventurous men to unknown lands is cross- 
ed in every direction by multitudes of ships, carrying the 
stores of both continents to and fro, and hundreds of thousands 
of voyagers. Meantime, Europe has more than once been 
shaken to its foundations and presents a new aspect. Some 
of the old monarchies survive ; but thrones have been 
cast down ; old institutions have vanished ; the masses have 
been elevated; the stately grandeur and arrogance of the i^v^' 
humbles itself before the many, and political forms appear, 
in which the people are considered as an element in the 
state. Literature, science, the mechanical arts, have made 



52 Quarter- Millennial Anniversaiy of the 

astonishing progress, and changed the very face of life. 
Popery and Mohammedanism have lost their significance, and are 
manifestly hasting to their predicted end. The Oriental world 
has thrown down its separating walls, and the faith, enterprise, 
civilization, religion of the west are introducing new ideas, a 
new faith and new soul into their effete systems. " Eastern 
Java now kneels with the native of the farthest west and 
worships." No former period of history, not the rise and 
supremacy of Imperial Rome when it spread Roman power, 
and thoughts and institutions over the nations ; nor when the 
empire broke into the ten prophetic kingdoms behind which 
the little horn came up to seduce, and subdue, and crush all 
other power; no portion of recorded time has wrought such 
changes upon man's earthly habitation, and thoughts and 
modes of living as have occurred during the life-time of this 
church. The politician and the historian see truly, but see 
only the effects of man's agency and rest in second- causes. 
The Christian surveys the scene in another spirit, and recog- 
nizes the march of the King of Kings " whose goings forth 
have been from of old, from everlasting." He sees in all the 
course of time, and especially in these later events, the acts of 
Jesus Christ whose is this world and who seems now hasting His 
preparations to take full possession of His purchased Kingdom, 
" the earth and the fulness thereof" He sees and adores. 

But what eye can pierce the darkness ; what human sagacity 
can forecast the events of the next 250 years ? It is not given 
to man to read the future. But the Scriptures utter divine 
revelations, and say " let him that readeth understand." 
Upon that darkness, then, we turn the lamp of prophecy, and 
wondrous scenes are unfolded to the eye of faith. Long be- 
fore those years shall have run their course the millennial 
glory, as we believe, shall have overspread the earth. Not in 
the degradation of the mediator, Christ, to a human shape, 
surrounding himself with the pageantry and low splendors of a 
worldly monarchy shall it be. But upon the throne to which 
He ascended, sitting at the right hand of the Father, " He shall 
see the travail of His soul ;" the life of sorrow ; the agony of the 



Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. 5 3 

garden ; the impalement of Calvary ; the disgrace of death ; His 
incarnation and atonement in their blessed fruits, " and shall be 
satisfied." The church shall continue its offices, not, as we 
believe, all merged in one, but still diverse in form to suit 
diversity of tastes, yet truly one in mutual recognition, and 
brotherhood and love. Governments will exist, and they not one, 
perhaps, but several. Social and civil life will go on as now, for 
men will still be men, but good men. And learning and the 
arts of life, inventions and discoveries which even in our day of 
wonders we can scarce imagine, will be in full operation. Wars 
and rumors of wars shall be no more heard. Commerce shall 
interchange the riches of all climes and bring all people into 
kind fellowship. All these various agencies in harmonious 
action, which are God's providence over the world, and above 
all, Christianity, the one acknowledged religion, pervading and 
animating all hearts, all relations, all duties; these and such 
shall be the days of the Son of Man on the earth and they shall 
last a thousand years. Then, and now speedily perhaps, shall be 
heard the gratulations of a renovated race. The prophetic sea 
of peoples, and nations and tongues, so long at strife, shall have 
rocked itself to rest. And diverse languages shall make no 
discord, but become the several parts in the one hymn of 
praise ; and there shall go up from all peoples and tongues 
under heaven, earth's grand hallelujah chorus, and the burden 
shall be : " Now is come salvation and strength, and the 
Kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ." 



Reformed Protestant Dutch Chnrc/i. 55 



$n\i\m in i-^F ^tiFning. 



These vuere eanditcted accarding to the follotuing 

pr0gratnme, luhich uias carried out 

to the minutest particular. 



56 



Qitartcr-MillciDiial A)i)iivcrsary of the 



Irocjramim for (l^faemng Scrb'ite. 



Beu. ^albot '(M . ^hambci|8, B.B., pijesiding, 



1 ie geum 
3 ftyum 557 



^ijendelssohn 



by Hcv. m. I. B. ipayloii, B3. L^tcZr, 



Of the 



I. Glorious things of thee are spoken, 

Zion, city of our God ; 
He whose word cannot be broken, 

Formed thee for His own abode : 
On the Rock of Ages founded. 

What can shake thy sure repose ? 
With salvation's walls surrounded. 

Thou mayst smile at all thy foes. 



Church 

See, the streams of living waters, 

Spnnging from eternal love. 
Well supply thy sons and daughters, 

And all fear of want remove : 
Who can faint, while such a river 

Ever flows their thirst to assuage ? 
Grace, which, like the Lord, the Giver, 

Never fails from age to age. 



5 g^tldf^^^ 

7 ^aar(?!s$ 



Round each habitation hovering. 

See the cloud and fire appear. 
For a glory and a covering. 

Showing that the Lord is near : 
Thus deriving from their Banner 

Light by night, and shade by day. 
Safe they feed upon the manna 

Which He gives them when they pray. 

by BevJ. iPoiigan Bix, !t?).B. 



Of the 

Protestant 
Episcopal Church 



by ilicv. '%. l^. Bogeiis, !t?).B. \^^ 
"^h«s Iteavens aijc felling." 



Of the 
efornied 
tch Church 



lllaydn 



by Bev. lowajjd (^Jiosby, B.B. ^'''c'hurch 



Of the 



8 g^ddresi^ 



by Beu. ^homas B. ^^'nderson, H^^b. {Baptist church 



Reformed Protestant Dutch CliurcJi. 57 



Irogramme for €betung ^<;rbia. 



O plpui X - . . _ ^uue, " i^anctus " 

I. Holy, Holy, Holy ! Lord God Almighty ! 

Early in the morning our songs shall rise to Thee : 
Holy, Holy, Holy ! merciful and mighty ; 
God in Three Persons, Blessed Trmity I 

Holy, Holy, Holy ! all the saints adore Thee, 

Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea. 

Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee, 
Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be. 

3. Holy, Holy, Holy ! Though the darkness hide Thee, 

Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see. 
Only Thou art Holy ; there is none beside Thee 
Perfect in power, in love, and purity. 

4. Holy, Holy, Holy ! Lord God Almighty ! 

All Thy works shall praise Thy name, in earth, and sky, and sea : 
Holy, Holy, Holy ! merciful and mighty ; 

God in Thi-ee Persons, Blessed Trinity ! Amen. 



1 %mxm - by Bev. ^. 1. I^iffany, :i?).B. 1,,,^'!;^,,^ 

1 1 ^(Ulr^lSi.Si - bij Beu. Eicbaiid %. ^toims, B.B. | c°"g-g^4""'' 

12 galklujaft ^\\tsxn - - - - :^andel 

13 goxMogjI - fgnm574. - ^vme, "i^-)H fundiied" 

I. P'rom all that dwell below the skies 2. Eternal are Thy mercies, Lord : 
Let the Creator's praise arise ; , Eternal truth attends Thy word ; 

Let the Redeemer's name be sung Thy praise shall sound from shore 

Through every land, by every tongue. to shore 

Till suns shall set and rise no more. 

1^ §ewc(lktiatt 



Music will be under the direction of Dr. S. Austen Pearce. 

Mr. W. E. Beames will preside at Organ. 



Reformed Protestant Diiteli ClutrcJi. 59 



®I)C 2lili!VC6SCS. 



At half-past seven o'clock the Rev. Dr. Chambers 
took the chair, and the pulpit was occupied by the 
other pastors and the officiating clergy, At the close 
of the preliminary music and devotions, the president 
said : 

"The purpose for which we are gathered this even- 
ing is to listen to some words of sympathy and con- 
gratulation from brethren representing the different 
ecclesiastical communions by which we are surrounded. 
The oldest of them dates its origin back to the 
English conquest, and came naturally to be called at 
that time the Engrlish church, while we were known as 
the Dutch church. The speaker this afternoon re- 
minded us of the pleasant relations which then existed 
between the two bodies. Those relations have con- 
tinued unchanged from that day to this. There was, 
at the close of the last century, a ripple of controversy 
on a doctrinal point between one of the ministers of 
this church (the Rev. Dr. Wm. Linn), and one of the 



6o Quartcr-Milloinial Anniversary of tJie 

assistant ministers of Trinity, (the Rev. Dr. Benjamin 
Moore, afterwards Bishop of the Diocese), and it 
resulted, as such controversies usually do, in each party 
being more firmly persuaded of his own opinion; but 
it was conducted without personalities, without bitter- 
ness, and left no sting behind. 

"I have the pleasure of introducing to you, as the 
representative of that church, one whom we honor for 
his own sake, and for his father's sake, and for the 
sake of the official position which he occupies : the 
Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, Rector of Trinity Church." 



Reformed Protestant Dutch ChurcJi. 6 1 



DR. DIX'S ADDRESS. 



Reverend Fathers of the Consistory of the Collegiate Church, 
and dear friends and brethren : 

In the name of the most high God, whose dominion is an 
everlasting dominion and His kingdom from generation to 
generation, under whose protection we are gathered together 
here, and to whom alone we look as the giver of every good 
and perfect gift, I bring to you, on this two hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary, the message of good will and peace. Peace be 
to you in this your spiritual house ; peace be to you in your 
homes and in your liearts ; and love with faith from God the 
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ ; and grace be with all them 
that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. 

Let me begin by disclaiming for myself the very high honor 
of occupying the first place among the speakers of this even- 
ing. That honor belongs to the office I hold, not to the person 
who fills it. Every one familiar with our metropolitan history 
knows that the rector of Trinity Church for the time being 
would, as a matter of course, be present on this occasion. 
The corporations which you and I represent are the oldest in 
the City of New York. The Collegiate Church and Trinity 
Church have long, long histories, which began when this 
city was comparatively a mere village, and have run on, side 
by side, in cloud and sunshine, under the providence of Al- 
mighty God. We have always been good friends ; through 
some special perils, common to us both have we been brought 
in safety ; our relations in the earliest days were very intimate; 
and although those relations no longer exist, yet the mutual 
honor and regard have not failed. Thus it is meet and right 
that on this great day of your rejoicing we should see each 
other face to face, and that I should bring to you a kind word 



62 Qiiaj-tcr-Miliennial Anniversary of the 



from my people, and in their name, as well as on my own 
part, wish you health and prosperity. 

Changes have come with the growing years to your house; 
but while we keep this feast the thoughts revert, as by instinct, 
to the Dutch era of our history and the old Dutch Church. 
With accuracy have you counted the days back into the past. 
In 1623 the first permanent agricultural settlement was made 
in New Netherland, and in 1628, five years later, the first 
Dutch minister arrived at Manhattan, and began the regular 
exercise of his ministry. That period of our history is appre- 
ciated more and more as time passes on. I was trained from 
my boyhood to honor and love the good old Dutch forefathers, 
and to admire their simple, homely ways ; the studies of mature 
years have added force and depth to those first impressions. 
The latest of our historical writers, in treating of those times, 
says that " it is plain that under the Dutch rule New York 
must have been the happiest, though not the most progressive, 
of the American provinces." " That happiness," he adds, 
" was due to the simplicity and contentment, the easy-going 
industry and love of harmless amusement, and to the liberal 
and kindly spirit which marked the men and their manners." 
" They worked steadily, governed their households wisely, and 
persecuted nobody." No wonder that they enjoyed life; no 
wonder that our restless, pushing, driving, ambitious, and dis- 
satisfied people do not enjoy it. Talk as we may of modern 
enterprise and progress, they do not always bring happiness ; 
they are apt to banish peace and breed discontent and disgust. 
The happy days are gone, to return no more till men will 
moderate and curb their desires, and relish, as of old, a quiet, 
simple life. 

You all know that the first form of Christianity professed in 
this place was brought hither by the settlers from Holland. 
Your ancestors did nothing without religion. Hither came 
the dominies, the schoolmasters, the comforters-of-the-sick, 
along with the first colonists ; and on those humble foundations 
which they laid was invoked the benediction of Almighty God. 
You know, also, that the Dutch were a liberal and tolerant 



Refonncd Protestant Dutch Church. 63 

people; and that, as a consequence of their generous temper 
and policy, this island became an asylum for the persecuted 
and oppressed in adjacent parts. It is one of the brightest 
features in your history; it explains, perhaps, the cordiality 
with which your invitation to rejoice with you this evening has 
been accepted. 

But while we, descendants of English Churchmen, thus do 
honor to the virtues of the Dutch and to the spirit of that 
form of Christianity which they established here, we may 
claim credit and commendation for the way in which our 
ancestors behaved themselves when the first period of the his- 
tory closed. New Amsterdam was taken ; it became New 
York ; and the Church of England was planted where the Classis 
of Amsterdam had been the supreme and only ecclesiastical 
authority. But observe how scrupulously the rights of your 
forefathers were respected. There is nothing like it in history ; 
never did conquerors treat the conquered with such deference 
and consideration. As far as possible the old customs 
were preserved ; private rights, contracts, inheritances, were 
scrupulously regarded ; and as for the Reformed Dutch 
Church, it seems to have been treated as a sacred thing. It 
was more than protected ; it was actually established by law 
by an English governor under English auspices. This was, 
perhaps, no more than a fair return for the good deeds done 
by your people. When your turn came to be under the yoke, 
it was said to you in substance : " You shall still be free ; 
not one of your old customs shall be changed until you 
change them yourselves ; by us you shall not be meddled 
with ; keep your places of worship, your flocks, and all you 
have, in peace." And so, to their old church of St. Nicholas, 
inside the fort, did your people continue to wend their way in 
absolute security, though English sentries were at the gates ; 
and within the walls over which the standard of England 
waved did the good Dutch dominie speak his mind as freely 
as ever to his spiritual children ; nor was it until they had 
finished their devotions and withdrawn that the English 
chaplain ventured within the same house of worship to read 



64 Qnartcr-Millcniiial Anniversary of the 



his Office from the Book of Common Prayer. I see in this 
what does credit to humanity ; here be kind consideration, ' 
mutual respect, and on both sides a study of the things that 
make for peace. Nor is it strange that when the Episcopal 
ministry was at length set up, and my reverend predecessor, 
William Vesey, had appeared in New York, in deacon's and 
priest's orders, and having his commission as first rector of 
Trinity Church, the civil ceremony of induction should have 
taken place in the new stone church in Garden Street belong- 
ing to the Dutch congregation, and that among the subscribing 
witnesses should have been two of the ministers of your faith. 
It was on Christmas-day, in the year of our Lord 1697, that 
he was duly inducted into his office by Governor Benjamin 
Fletcher ; and in the same building, for about three months, 
until the completion of the church of the English congregation, 
did your Dominie Selyns and our Rector Vesey officiate 
alternately, the one in the Dutch language, the other in the 
English tongue. 

It is not only on the religious side, however, that you chal- 
lenge our respect as a historic body; your church was the 
pioneer of education in this place. The good old Dutch fore- 
fathers believed that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
wisdom ; and so wherever they sent the minister they also 
sent the schoolmaster, that learning might go on abreast with 
religion, and that religion might give its blessing to learning. 
When the colony passed under English rule the old system 
was exactly maintained; with this sole difference, that school- 
masters must get their licenses from tl,ie Archbishop of Can- 
terbury instead of the Amsterdam Classis. It is generally 
acknowledged that the existing system of education in the 
State of New York owes its origin, in part, to the character, 
policy, and customs of your predecessors, whose scheme, in 
its general features, was adopted by the English, and whose 
influence thus remained active long after the reins of civil 
power had been taken from their hands. 

Of such as these specimens are the other parts of the 
historical record of your venerable household of faith ; and 



Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. 65 

for these good beginnings are you justly held in honor by 
the intelligent citizens of New York. What has been the 
history of your denomination, from those early days to our 
own, you know better than we who are exterior to your fold ; 
but, in observing you, we think that we find among the 
children many of those qualities and traits which pleased us 
in the fathers. You have little or nothing to do with sensa- 
tional religion ; you seem a sober-minded, steady-going folk ; 
you do not shock us by exhibitions of unwholesome excite- 
ment, nor do you, by your manners or words, rob religion 
of her dignity, or weaken the habit of reverence in the hearts 
of the young. It has been my fortune to become acquainted, 
officially, with some individuals of your number ; I am now 
connected in the same way with others, by duties which bring 
us frequently together ; and in these cases, what was at first 
a professional acquaintanceship has ultimately taken the 
higher form of sincere respect and affectionate regard. In 
particular I recall the venerable form, the benevolent features, 
of one whom I came to honor and love, and on whose 
memory I shall ever dwell as that of one who seemed a 
pattern of Christian virtues — the Rev. Thomas De Witt, whose 
colleague I was for several years in the fulfillment of an im- 
portant trust, a man whom it was a help and blessing to know. 
If he and men like him were fair examples of the result of 
your principles and the quality of your religion, you cannot 
be thought to have degenerated, even though in name, and 
perchance otherwise, changes have passed over your house. 
To that house I cheerfully bring greeting from our people, 
assuring you of our good will, and trusting that, as years go 
on, we may work together, under the providence of the Lord 
of all, for those ends which shall best promote His glory, the 
salvation of souls through Christ, and the peace and order 
of the commonwealth. 



66 Qiiaiicr-Miiiciinial Anniversary of the 



At the conclusion of the foregoing- address, Dr. 
Chambers said : 

" In the early part of this century, one of the congre- 
gations of the Collegiate church separated itself from 
the main body and became independent. This was 
the Garden Street church. When its house of wor- 
ship, then, I think, the oldest in the city, w^as de- 
stroyed by the disastrous fire in 1835, it divided itself 
into two branches, one remaining in the lower part 
of the city, the other removing up-town. The last 
pastor of one of those branches, the Rev. Dr Hutton, 
honored us with his venerable presence this afternoon, 
and took part in the services. The present pastor 
of the other, the Rev. Dr. Rogers, for many years 
minister at Albany, in the church, of what two centuries 
ago was called Fort Orange, an organization next in 
age to our own, has consented to speak to us in the 
name of the other Dutch churches of the island." 



Refonned Protestajit DutcJi Church. 67 



DR. ROGERS'S ADDRESS. 



Dear Brethren : 

It is a matter of congratulation to myself that the duty 
assigned me on this occasion is one which does not call for 
lengthened or elaborate address. I come here as one of the 
children of the ancient household, visiting the old paternal 
roof, and bringing the congratulations and good wishes of the 
family circle to the old folks at home. And it is a pleasant 
thing that it comes just at this season of the year, when we 
are to keep our annual thanksgiving service which brings 
together the scattered children of the household, who come 
back in so many instances throughout our land to see the 
spot that gave them birth, to see the parents who brought 
them into being and reared and cherished them, to thank them 
for all they did for them in their infancy and youth, and to 
spend a few hours in sweet family union and communion 
before they separate again to go back to the work and the 
warfare of life. 

There are many of my brethren here to-night, sir, who 
might more appropriately, more effectively, and more elo- 
quently discharge the duty which the kindness of your Con- 
sistory has assigned to me ; but there is not one of them all 
who can do it with a warmer heart, or with a more true affec- 
tion, or with a higher appreciation of what the Dutch Church 
in New York owes to this ancient and venerable body. And 
yet, sir, I have been in a measure perplexed as to the question 
of identity and propriety here. Why, as I sat this afternoon 
and listened to that glowing and eloquent description of the 
history of the Dutch Church of New York, all it had done, 
all it was, all that God had enabled it to be and to do, I sat in 
the most comfortable and pleasant state of mind, thinking 



68 Quarter-Millennial Anniversary of the 



that I was part of all that, and that my church, having been 
for nearly two hundred years one of this circle of churches, 
was the oldest of them all. I find when I look at that docu- 
ment which called me to my native city, after years of absence, 
to take a pastoral charge here, that I was called by the elders 
and deacons of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in 
Garden Street, in the city of New York, to be their pastor ; 
and I learned this afternoon what I knew well before, sir, that 
that old Garden Street church in the city of New York was 
the very first of the Dutch churches of this city, and for many 
years was the oldest church in this connection. And so I be- 
gan to feel really it was a very indelicate thing for me to take 
any public part in this service, as I was one of the family, and 
should rather sit and absorb all these delightful and pleasant 
things which our friend Dr. Dix has begun by saying, and 
which these other excellent brethren are to continue to say 
this evening. And yet it is a fact that seventy-two or seventy- 
three years ago Garden Street did become independent of this 
venerable body ; and so by a strange transformation — trans- 
migration, I should say — one of the fathers has come to be 
one of the sons, and I am sent here now to speak for the rest 
of the children. Well, sir, I am glad to be counted as one of 
the sons, and to have the honor of speaking in behalf of such 
a respectable family. Sir, I bring you, then, the congratula- 
tions, good wishes, and grateful thanks of the other churches 
of our faith and name in this great city and vicinity. We 
honor you ; we love you ; we are grateful to you ; we thank 
God that we belong to the same family circle, and we are 
grateful to you, grateful to this church, that for this two hun- 
dred and fifty years it has held up on this Island and in this 
land the banner of Christ witl% such a firm, true, and loyal 
grasp, never trailing it before the foe. Many a trumpeter 
blowing the silver trumpet of the Gospel has ascended your 
towers during this two hundred and fifty years, but in not a 
single case has the trumpet given an uncertain sound. The 
pure faith of God's Word, the faith dear to our fathers, the 
faith transmitted by them to us, the faith sent across the sea 



Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. 69 

to bear fruit in this Western wilderness, has been upheld by 
them during all this two hundred and fifty years with a true 
Christian fidelity and Christian heroism ; and the children, 
speaking in their name, are strengthened in their attachment 
to this ancient faith and these ancient forms by the noble ex- 
amjDle of fidelity which this church has set us during all these 
two hundred and fifty years. No man who has sat under the 
ministry of those men of God whose portraits grace the room 
in the rear of this building, at which I wish all this vast as- 
sembly could look, for they could not see in any portrait gal- 
lery in the earth a nobler set of men — men of God, men of 
culture, men of scholarship, men of devotion ; no man can 
say that the trumpet has in a solitary case given an uncertain 
sound, but the truths which, as we heard this afternoon, 
have been testified to by the sufferings and blood of the 
fathers in the old land, have been presented by the sons with 
equal fidelity, and have borne abundant fruit in this new world ; 
and all the children, the thousands and tens of thousands of 
children that have been trained up in this church have been 
trained, up in the same faith. And if you will remember the 
history of the men who have been reared up in this church 
and have gone out in the various walks of life, whose names I 
might recount here, you would say that their history and 
character were the natural influence of such a thorough and 
earnest training. 

What shall I say of the men themselves who have stood on 
these towers and preached this faith ? I remember some of 
them. I shall remember them as long as I live. Take the 
three men who were the pastors of this church in my child- 
hood, who, as I met them sometimes on the Sabbath arrayed 
in their canonicals, impressed-my youthful imagination more 
profoundly than it has ever been impressed since those days — 
take these three men, so unlike and with so much individu- 
ality about them, and yet such men of poAver and of such 
wonderful character — Knox, Brownlee, and De Witt. If these 
three men alone were to go down to posterity as the repre- 
sentatives of the ministry of this church, their testimony 



Quaytcr-Millcit)ti(xl A)niivcrsan' of tin 



would be one which never could be gainsaid. It would carry 
convincing power to the very end of time in behalf of the 
church which had chosen and sat under the ministry of men 
like these. . So 1 might speak of the laymen of the church — 
men \\\\o, in the various branches of life, at the bar, minister- 
ing to the sick, in the walks of trade and finance, have been 
men distinguished for integrity, for uprightness, for devout- 
ness, for the fear of God and the love of all that was good in 
man — such men as Wood, Woodruff, Frelinghuysen, Slosson, 
Smith, Nelson, Van Nest, Suydam, Sturges, Jeremiah, and 
Brower — and other men whom I cannot recall at the mo- 
ment, but whose names are household words in the walks 
of trade and among the brethren of the bar, and their 
children and their children's children. The church that has 
trained up and sent forth such men is certainly entitled to the 
gratitude of all this community. 

And, sir, I feel that we owe a debt of gratitude to 
this church because she has maintained always the exter- 
nals of worship, not only in their purity, but in their 
beauty, in their liberality, and in their propriety. My 
excellent friend who preceded me alluded to this. Surely 
something is due of gratitude from the children to the parents 
who have maintained the house of God in its beauty, in its 
dignity, and who have kept its pulpit sacredly free, as has so 
well been said, from anything like sensationalism, anything 
that ministers to the lower tastes of the populace. I thank 
God that the Dutch Church has no place in it for sensation- 
alists, and if any ever appear for a time among us, they very 
soon find that they are in an uncongenial atmosphere, and 
they gravitate inevitably to their own place. I thank God 
that our Church has always preserved the order, the decorum 
and dignity of its pulpit, and the beauty and simplicity of its 
forms of worship. And I am grateful that it has set an ex- 
ample to all churches respecting caring for the ministry of the 
Word. Her arrangements for them have always been of the 
most becoming and liberal character. It was said in regard 
to a certain distinguished New England divine, many years 



Reformed Protestant Diitcli Churcli. y i 

ago, during his call to a certain prominent pulpit, the commit- 
tee said : " We hope that if you accept our call, you will trust 
God to keep you humble : you may trust the church to keep 
you poor." That has not been the principle of this church. 
She has never had one standard of spirituality for her dominies 
and another for her members. She has provided things, not 
only honest, but liberal in the sight of all men, and as believ- 
ing in the cardinal principle of God's own word, that the 
laborer is worthy of his hire. And in that she is entitled to 
the gratitude of her children, and is an example to all her 
sisters. But, sir, I must not enlarge ; in fact, I feel the time 
is sacred to the representatives of other churches, and that I, 
as one of you, have nothing to say except we are glad to come 
back to our own home to see our parents, and to rejoice in 
their vigor. Why, they are two hundred and fifty years old, 
but there is not a wrinkle on their brows. Who would sup- 
pose that he who enchanted us so long this afternoon was the 
s2n;or minister of this church ? Why, the church is two hun- 
dred and fifty years old ; but what is two hundred and fifty 
years? We are just beginning our work — just beginning our 
life. May you go on and set us a good example in all those 
things to which I have referred, steadfast to the truth of God, 
caring for the order and dignity of God's house, respecting 
and honoring the faithful ministers of God, training up the 
children in the fear of the Lord and in the faith of Jesus 
Christ, and giving largely to benevolent causes, and to assist 
feeble churches. I might have said much on that score, but 
your character is too well known to need any enlargement. 
May the past be prophetic of the future. For whatever may 
be the signs of the times in regard to denominational pros- 
perity and growth, one thing is certain, the power that this 
church has exerted, and the prosperity to which it has attained 
in these two hundred and fifty years, has been due to the fact 
that its foundation was God's truth, the cross of Christ ; and 
that foundation still stands, and on that foundation in years to 
come this church, still resting and trusting to the power of 
God's Spirit, has nothing to fear from the progress of time. 



72 Quarter- Milli'juiial AiDih'crsarv of the 

We only hope that when generations and generations still, 
have passed away, and we who are now the children, fathers, 
and grandfathers, go down to our graves, others will arise up 
after us to come up to such convocations as this in days to 
come, and thank God then that this church lives, has done, is 
doing, and will do a blessed work for God, for truth, for our 
country, and for the world. 



Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. 73 



After the performance of the anthem, "The Heav- 
ens are TelHng," Dr. Chambers said : 

" The next oldest denomination in our city is one 
closely resembling our own in doctrine, and order, 
and spirit — one with which we have always held in 
timate and affectionate correspondence. It will be 
represented here this evening by one equally distin- 
guished in letters, in the professorial chair, and in 
the pulpit ; one who was born and spent the most of 
his life in this city, and one peculiarly dear to us as 
springing from an ancestry which for generations has 
been honored and loved in our Church. I have the 
pleasure to introduce to you the Rev. Dr. Howard 
Crosby." 



Refoniicd Protestant Dutch Church. 75 



DR. CROSBY'S ADDRESS, 



The Presbyterian Church most joyfully takes its place in 
the ranks of those who to-night would honor and congratu- 
late the oldest sister church on the Island of Manhattan. We 
think we hold a very desirable position, chronologically, in 
the Protestant family in New York. We look to our older 
sisters, the Reformed Dutch and Episcopal churches, with an 
affection that is somewhat tinged with reverence, while we 
look upon our younger sisters, the Baptist, the Methodist, and 
the Congregational churches with an equal warmth of affec- 
tion, but, perhaps, tinged somewhat with a patronizing, or, 
rather, niatroiii.ziiig spirit. 

We draw from our older sisters that dignity and conserva- 
tism which have always marked them, while we also are able 
to exhibit some of that plastic adaptedness which so charac- 
terizes our younger sisters. We think we stand midway be- 
tween these for great good to ourselves. And yet, historically, 
there is one fact concerning us which makes us not a little 
proud in comparison with them all. If we look for that which 
constitutes a mark of a church's genuineness, we look for 
martyrdom, for persecution ; and wie boast of being the only 
church in the city of New York that began its career amid 
the storm of persecution. Let me carry you back, if you are 
not aware of the story, to a fact in the history of this Island 
of Manhattan. I touch for a few moments (for only a few 
moments are given me) on the history of the Presbyterian 
Church here. Let us go back to the month of January, 1707, 
a cold January day, and we will take a look into the Govern- 
or's house. There never was a Colonial Governor in New 
York who so completely aped the monarch as Lord Cornbury, 
He was own cousin to Queen Anne, who was then upon the 



76 Quarter- MillciDiial Anniversary of tlu 



throne. He was determined to make the colonists understand 
his relationship to the sovereign ; and so he carried a little 
regal state with him in his gubernatorial home. We come to 
that Governor's house and see those royally-furnished apart- 
ments, and behold the Governor himself covered with gold 
lace, proud of his dignity, sitting at his dinner-table, and at 
the table, as invited guests, two very marked men — one es- 
pecially you would note for his noble bearing, a man who wa£ 
a scholar ; a man of fascinating appearance and manner, but 
with a broad Scotch dialect. These two guests had but lately 
arrived in New York, and the Governor, Lord Cornbury, had 
invited them to visit the regal mansion, there to dine with his 
lordship. They had accepted the invitation, and before that 
rousing wood fire and the brass andirons in the big chimney, 
they were enjoying the repast at the Governor's table. What 
could be more friendly than that ? Four days afterward those 
two men were languishing in the city jail, and there they spent 
two long, weary months, at the bidding of that same Governor, 
their host of four days before. One of those men twenty-five 
years before had come from Scotland as a Presbyterian minis- 
ter, first to Barbadoes, and then to the colony of Maryland. 
That Roman Catholic colony of Maryland, and the Quaker 
colony of Pennsylvania, and the Baptist colony of Rhode 
Island, were the only three colonies that opened their doors 
wide to Christians of all denominations. 

The Presbyterians had gone into Maryland and into Penn- 
sylvania ; the Synod of Picnnsylvania had been established in 
the year 1706, and the outlying churches of that Synod ex- 
tended into New Jersey, and even into Long Island. This 
minister came from Maryland, where he had been stationed, 
and had done a great and good work, northward to look at 
the land, to New York and New England, and on his arrival 
in New York had been so courteously (as we have seen) in- 
vited by the Governor to take dinner with him, but on the 
next day, which was Sunday, in the house of one William 
Jackson, in Pearl street, this same man preached a sermon, 
held divine service and baptiz.ed a child, while his friend, John 



Reformed Protestant Diiteh ChnreJi. jj 

Hampton, also went to Newtown, Long Island, and there 
preached in the church. For this offence of preaching in a 
colony where there was not only one established church, but 
two established churches, the Governor felt that his dignity 
and the dignity of the Crown was assailed. The men were 
arrested, and it was two months before they were let out of 
jail and allowed to give bail for their appearance for trial. 
Now that was the beginning of the Presbyterian Church in this 
city. At that time there were but four church buildings in 
the city. There was the old Garden Street Dutch Church ; 
there was Trinity Church at the head of Wall street, and then 
two other churches allowed by the government, because the 
service was conducted in a foreign language, and for the bene- 
fit of the foreign exiles — the French church in Pine street, 
the Eglise du St. Esprit, and the Church of the Lutherans, on 
the site that was afterward covered by the old Grace Church 
on the corner of Broadway and Rector street. These were 
the only four churches at that time in the city, and the city 
extended only to Maiden Lane, except upon the East River 
shore. And yet, twelve years after that, in 17 19, the Presby-. 
terian church-building in Wall street was erected — such a 
change had come over the public opinion. In 1741 a new 
phase of Presbyterianism marked the city, and the Presbyte- 
rian Church in the country from this reason. The old Scotch 
and Irish Presbyterians had been mingling largely with Pres- 
byterians from England, Wales, and New England. Those 
who had come from England, Wales, and New England ha^l 
rather more liberal views with regard to some practical mat- 
ters than the old staunch men of Scotland and Ireland, and 
the opinions began to differ and the preaching to be made 
much wider, until at last, in 1 741, there was a complete divis- 
ion, the old side representing the Scotch and Irish Presbyte- 
rianism, who made a great deal of what they called " literature," 
and on the new side the English, Welsh, and New Eng- 
land members, principally, who made a great deal of personal 
piety ; not that all the personal piety was on their, not 
that all the literature was on the other side, but these were 



78 Quarter- Milk )inial Aiuiivcrsary of the 

emphasized especially on the two sides. Then this breach 
was made, and the Synod of New York was constituted ; then 
came the College of New Jersey as a helper to the new side, 
first planted at Elizabeth, then at Newark, and then at Prince- 
ton. After seventeen years of this separation, in 175 8 they 
came together again. This was the origin of Presbyterianism 
in this city and in this part of our country. 

Now we take great pleasure to-night in recapitulating this 
history to know that all our course in this city has been hand 
in hand and heart with heart with this glorious old mother 
church — the Reformed Dutch Church. We rejoice to know 
that even while differencees have broken out among ourselves, 
we have never had any differences with this Church, that we 
always have honored, and honor still more now than ever 
before. When we may be accused of now and then harbor- 
ing some elements of sensation among ourselves, we draw 
nearer to these conservative brethren and are strengthened; 
and we believe that one of the designs of Providence in main- 
taining the Reformed Dutch Church in the city of New York 
was to help our own Presbyterian Church to walk straightly 
among you. But I will not enlarge. It is from the bottom 
of our hearts that we, as Presbyterians, give our congratulations 
to-night. We like such meetings as these. We like to see 
all who love the Lord Jesus Christ banded together in one 
service. We wish we could have them from week to week ; 
we wish that all distinctions might be obliterated except the 
distinctions between those that love Jesus and those who do 
not; and we shall be just as glad when Trinity invites us to 
its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and come there and 
take our part and say our words of congratulation, and rejoice 
with just as great sincerity as we would for our own two hun- 
dred and fiftieth anniversary when that may come. 



Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. yg 



At the conclusion of Dr. Crosby's address, Dr. 
Chambers said : 

"The brother who is next to address us appears for 
a denomination which could dispute, and I think with 
some justice, the claim to the special distinction 
of martyrdom which has been made by the speaker 
who has just sat down. The honor of being cradled 
in persecution does, indeed, belong to the vener- 
able body which he so worthily represents. But 
twenty years before the occurrence of the incident 
which Dr. Crosby related to us with so much pictur- 
esque vividness, a Baptist minister came to Manhattan 
Island, and although he was not put in jail, he found 
it convenient to leave the Island much more quickly 
than he came. This body of Christians, from whom 
we are separated by order and discipline, but with 
whom we are most closely united in substance of doc- 
trine ; this body, which is identified with soul liberty 
and soundness of faith, is represented to us this even- 
ing by a brother who has long held an important 
pastoral charge in this city, and has frequently, in 
union efforts of prayer and conference, been associ- 
ated with the ministers of our church, and particularly 
with the one who last went to his rest. Dr. DeWitt. 
I have the pleasure to introduce to you the Rev. 
Thomas D. Anderson, D. D., of the Baptist Church." 



Reformed Protestant Dutch CJiurcJi. 



DR. ANDERSON'S ADDRESS. 



I thank you, Mr. President, for taking away from me the 
somewhat unpleasant duty of referring to our page of mar- 
tyrdom. 

Beloved BretJiroi in Christ : 

To stand on the rock of Plymouth shore first touched 
by the foot of the landing Pilgrim ; to enter the hall in the 
old State House at Philadelphia, where, with bold but reverend 
pens, the Declaration of Independence was signed ; to walk 
around the simple tomb by the side of the Potomac at Mount 
Vernon, where quietly sleeps the dust of Washington, awak- 
ens, by the associations surrounding these inanimate objects, 
the emotions of every patriotic heart. 

To read the very sentences of the " Compact" drawn up in 
the cabin of the Mayflower, moulding the elements of gov- 
ernment beneath the sanction of the Almighty ; to dwell on 
the distinguishing characteristic in the charter of Providence 
Plantations, according to every man, as a right, religious 
freedom ; to slowly read the lines of the original document 
of the Constitution of the United States, that blend in indis- 
soluble union personal liberty, state rights, and national sov- 
ereignty, we come still nearer, as the communicated thoughts 
possess the mind, to the sources of those ideas which have 
given to our people individualism, to our communities order, 
and strength to our nation. In either case, however, we touch 
not life — in the former, only the inanimate object, in the 
latter, impersonal idea. But to-night, in reviewing the rise 
and progress of Christianity and a Christian civilization on 
our Island and in our State, our contact is with personal life. 
One living- organization in all its vig-or stands before us that 



82 Qiiartcr-]\IilU)inial Ajuiivcrsary of the 

has spanned the entire period of two hundred and fifty years, 
since the planting of the Dutch colony at New Amsterdam 
until the present evening; We are not called to tread, within 
our Battery, on the consecrated spot where early stood the 
church within the fort ; nor to decipher the venerable parch- 
ments containing the symbols of this ancient body; but we 
grasp living hands which have been joined to others in un- 
broken succession from that day to this ; we respond to the 
pulsations of the " eternal life," transmitted through renewed 
hearts from those first believers in Christ, until they throb 
against our own in the breasts of these brethren whom we 
are here convened to greet, and who so generously share with 
us the inspiration of this memorial hour. 

Gathering up the faith and love, the impulses and achieve- 
ments, the history and prophecy of all these years as they are 
conserved in this living church only to be put forth again a 
thousandfold in the multiple forms of Christian activity, have 
we not, brethren, a beautiful image of the Body of Christ of 
which He is the Head ? 

. If, of the multitudes which, from the vast population of this 
metropolis, have come to bid you hail on this quarter-millen- 
nial birthday, all are not of your own household of faith, 
shall it be thought to detract aught from your greatness, 
because in one external ecclesiastical body they do not all 
bow at one altar? Conditioned as the mind is in our present 
imperfect state, with an open Bible in our hands, is it not well 
that all outward restraint be removed, and the soul be allowed, 
according to its convictions, to shape its faith and practice be- 
neath no other authority than that of God ? Is it not to the 
honor of 2i first Church that around it others have arisen to 
emulate its excellence and share its sympathies ? Is not the 
strength of the Collegiate Church greater, sharing, as it does, 
the spontaneous joy in her prosperity of these sister denomi- 
nations, which is only less than her own, and aided in her 
efforts by their fraternal co-operation, than it would be if the 
monotony of an imposed unity had quenched the generous 
rivalries of different churches ?• It may well be considered as 



Reformed Protestant DutcJi C J lurch. 83 

an additional wreath of bays around your brow, that Episco- 
pahans and Congregationahsts, Presbyterians and Baptists, 
Reformed and Methodists, ask the privilege of laying their 
tribute of love and prayer on your altar to-night as a testi- 
mony to the oneness in Christ of all believers, which, in your 
kindly relations to other churches, you have so beautifully 
illustrated. 

I have been selected to represent our denomination, not 
from any special fitness for the service beyond the possession 
of a heart most deeply to appreciate it, but because I have 
the honor to be the pastor of our oldest church in this city, 
which, now through me in behalf of all of like views, extends 
its hand of fellowship and of cheer. 

Our Church has lived by your side for more than half of 
your long lifetime, and, therefore, we have a right to speak with 
some authority when we testify our liking for you. We like 
your coiisei'vatisin, for amid necessary changes we can have no 
progress, unless we hold fast that which is good. You hold, 
doubtless, in your creed some articles from which we dissent. 
But while you hold them as convictions prayerfully drawn 
from the Bible, our common standard, we would be, not only 
ungenerous, but untrue to our most dearly-cherished princi- 
ples if we withheld our honor from your steadfastness. Still 
further we honor you, not merely for holding your convictions, 
but also for maintaining inviolate the order by ^^'hich provis- 
ion is made to have them statedly presented to your congre- 
gations, that they may be thoroughly furnished for every good 
work. Against indifferentism and the wayward liberality of 
the age, we honor your conservatism. 

We like yoMv facile practicalness. What is to be done seems 
to meet with all instrumentalities ready at hand, without en- 
grafting on the system questionable and untried devices. 
Although we are taught to believe that no church has a 
stauncher order, yet nothing stands in the way of the freest 
engagement in all true enterprises for the moral and spiritual 
improvement of men. Indeed, your ecclesiastical system ap- 
pears to us outsiders never to feel a strain while it gracefully 



84 Quarter-Millennial Anniversary of the 

bends to all the requirements of Christian benevolence through 
all its manifold workings. In this facile comprehensiveness 
there seems to be a place for every temperament, for every 
order of talent, and for every grade of ministration. 

We honor you above all for that ricli evangelical vein that 
runs through the writings of your authors, through the ser- 
mons of your preachers, and through all the agencies you use 
for the advancement of Christ's kingdom. It is this which 
qualifies the Dutch Church to work so harmoniously in union 
efforts when those efforts have for their object only the glory 
of God and the well-being of man. For these things, with 
others not named, we, as Baptists, honor you. Yet, while 
frankly expressing our regard, we lay no claim to a monopoly 
of the esteem which I am sure is held by us in common with 
the other Christian denominations. 

Apparently, casual circumstances often hold within them 
prophecy and symbol. The church within the fort, provided 
as one of the earliest resting-places for Jehovah Shammah on 
this Island, bears to my mind such a significance. Let the 
fort stand for the State, and the inclosed tabernacle for God 
with us, and by this piece of heraldry we are taught that the 
stability of the State is secured 6nly as within her borders 
God abides. He only is the strong tower, the entrenched 
citadel into which the nation can resort for safety. Walls, and 
battlements, and the ocean are a defence only when they offer 
their homage to Jehovah Jireh. Is the fort the nucleus of the 
State, through whose openings along the avenues of com- 
merce, population, trade, education, and government she will 
project her future forces ? Along with all these, as from a 
vital centre, must radiate the influences of Immanuel. 

Is it too much to say that by some invisible guide this 
people have been taught to read the prophecy of the church 
within the fort, and to follow its teachings along the line of 
their history ? So, at first, they sanctified by worship the 
beginnings of the State ; so they dedicated the commerce of 
the week to the Lord of the Sabbath, for the earth is the 
Lord's, and the fulness thereof; so from the fort they accom- 



Reforuicd Protestant Dutch C/uiirh. 85 

panied population from the Battery to Garden street, to Lib- 
erty street, to Fulton street, to Lafayette Place, to Twenty-ninth 
street, to Forty-eighth street, flanking their march uptown by 
chapels, Sunday and industrial schools, and missions on the 
right and left, that there might be none to say in this crowded 
city, " No man careth for my soul." 

When the language of Manhattan changed, with the gov- 
ernment, from the Dutch to the English, the vital spirit of the 
church within the fort transferred the same glorious Gospel 
from the sonorous speech of Holland to the English vernacu- 
lar through the ministries of the sainted Laidlie and Living- 
ston. When trade usurped the dwellings of home, the 
informing Christianity must not be driven from its central 
position. It entered the busy mart, and at the hour of high 
noon, in the .heart of traffic, true to this prophecy, the prayer- 
meeting was enshrined, the Fulton Street Prayer-meeting that 
has offered up before the Throne the prayers of a world. 
Ever may this church continue a centre of spiritual power, 
not alone upon this Island, but throughout this nation. Such 
is the prophecy whose lessons have been so well learned and 
followed by the Collegiate Church. 

Wlien the State shall have passed away, and instead of this 
earthly metropolis " the holy city, the new Jerusalem," will 
come down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride 
adorned for her husband, although there will be no commerce, 
for there shall be no sea ; although the gates shall not be 
closed, for there shall be no night there ; although the minis- 
tries of relief will be ended, for there shall be no more pain ; 
although the sun ^nd moon shall withdraw their light because 
of the glory of the Lamb ; and although in the midst of this 
four-squared city, with its walls of jasper, its foundation of 
precious stones, and its gates of pearl, there shall be no tem- 
ple ; when the assembled multitudes, the one hundred forty 
and four thousand, with the innumerable company which no 
man can number, shall hear the voice out of heaven saying, 
" The tabernacle of God is with men, and Ke will dwell 
among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself 



86 Quarter-Millennial Anniversary of the 



shall be with them and be their God," then and there, beloved 
brethren, shall we behold, with admiring gratitude, the radiant 
glory of our earthly emblem, " The Church within the Fort." 



Reformed Protestant Duteli CJiurch. 87 



Here the congregation united in singing Bishop 
Heber's fine anthem, founded on the Trisagion, after 
which the chairman said : 

" The next speaker on the hst is from the youngest 
of the o-reat Protestant communities of our country. 
It is not much more than a hundred years ago when 
a Methodist minister landed in this city and set up 
his banner in the name of the Lord ; and when we 
think of what resuhed from that venture, the aggres- 
siveness, the fiery zeal, and the wondrous success 
which attended the efforts of those brethren, we are 
reminded of the verse of Bishop Berkeley : 

' Time's noblest offspring is the last.' 

The brother who has kindly consented to represent 
that communion on this occasion was the pupil of 
Durbin and McClintock, and well holds up the banner 
which they unfurled. I have the pleasure of intro- 
ducing, to you the Rev. Dr. Tiffany, of St. Paul's 
Methodist Episcopal Church." 



Reformed Protestant Diitcli Churek. 89 



DR. TIFFANY'S ADDRESS. 



Fathers and Brethren : 

At the close of the very interesting and admirable discourse 
to which we listened this afternoon, when my name was 
announced in the list of speakers for the evening, a clergyman 
who sat next to me asked, " And what relations have you to 
the Dutch Church?" This question I now propose to an- 
swer by saying that I belong to a Church which, though one 
hundred and fifty years younger, has had many similar ex- 
periences, and has providentially adopted many of the same 
methods. I think it may be of interest to you to know some 
facts which may have hitherto escaped your observation. 

The one hundred and forty-three years, from 1623 to 1776, 
exactly represent the interval between the arrival in this 
country of your " krank-besoekers " from the Netherlands 
and our " class-leaders " from Ireland. These men performed 
similar duties in each church ; in the absence of clergymen 
they visited the sick, read and expounded the Bible, and ex- 
horted men to Christian duty and the activities of a Christian 
life. Your " krank-besoekers " met in a room over a horse- 
mill, ; our "class-leaders" met in a sail-loft. Last month we 
celebrated the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the dedi- 
cation of our first meeting-house in John street, and I felt 
quite a veneration for our antiquity until I came under the 
shadow of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 
Dutch Church. Though so long an interval separates the 
organization of our churches, yet I find that history repeats 
itself, and we have many things in common. Each church 
was felt to be a necessity, and the abundant fruitage harvested 
by each justifies the wisdom of its separate existence. Both 
were born in the throes of a spiritual revival, and both were, 



90 Quaytcr-Millciuiial Ainiivcrsary of the 

in some sense, nursed in persecutions, for the title, "The 
Church of the Netherlands niidcr the Cross',' had a meaning 
in the sixteenth century not unlike that attached to the term 
"Methodist" in the seventeenth. You took the fields for 
your pulpits a century before Whitefield and Wesley were 
compelled to resort to them, by reason of the circumstances 
which surrounded them. Your hymn^ of praise and songs 
of salvation were sung in full voice by the congregation of 
worshippers long before God raised up Charles Wesley to be 
the sweet Psalmist of our modern Israel. You have always 
had authorized, but not obligatory forms for public service. 
If I read aright the motto on the shield of the old North 
Church, and " daiuio co/iscivat" is an expression of your finan- 
cial policy, it is only a more classic expression of the plan of 
John Wesley, who built chapels and carried on his work by 
means of "a penny a week and a shilling a quarter" from 
each member of his societies. Your plan of rotation in the 
pulpits of the Collegiate Churches we have enlarged into an 
itinerancy which belts the globe. 

But you adopted the Calvinistic interpretation of God's 
Book, and we the Arminian. You, for reasons clearly set 
forth this afternoon, largely limited your activities to the 
neighborhood of your first planting, and have in consequence 
built up a solid character and a robust conservatism, while we 
have taken a wider range, are less conservative and sedate, 
more open to the charge of sensationalism, because we have 
been more largely moulded by the spirit of the age and the 
o-enius of more modern institutions. And so, as we come 
to-night and sit among you, the youngest of your guests, we 
offer you our hearty greeting, with genuine appreciation of 
your steadfast adherence to your principles and an honest 
admiration of your vigorous age. 

The service of to-night, however, impresses me more in its 
bearing on the future than in its relation to the past, for while, 
in a just sense, it is the culmination of a period in history, in 
another it is the opening of a field for prophecy. And as, in 
your admirable and felicitous introduction, Mr. President, you 



Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. 91 

have spoken of the gentlemen who have preceded me as repre- 
sentatives of olden times and older churches, and of me so 
kindly as a younger member of a younger church, let me, now 
that the old men have told the dreams which they have dreamt, 
tell of the vision which this night suggests. The invitation 
of the oldest Church to all the younger branches, and the 
hearty response given to these invitations by the presence of 
so many notable men from all the churches ; the coming to- 
gether on this platform of so many men who represent so 
many phases of belief and so many forms of worship, is to 
me an indication that Christian forces are answering Christ's 
prayer for the unity of His disciples. It indicates that the 
days of exclusion and separation are giving way to days of 
fraternization and brotherhood. Union takes the place of 
controversy ; the theological champions and disputants are 
retiring within their appropriate spheres, the schools and 
seminaries ; and the churches are ceasing to dispute, and are vic- 
ing with each other in love and good works. The contro- 
versialist of the former days was the product of an age when 
a man was mighty according to the thickness of the trees 
against which he lifted up his axe ; he has no more a place 
for his denunciations, nor an audience for his declamation. 
In an advanced light men have been able to recognize the 
hidden good which underlies apparent errors. Beneath 
the differentials of creeds and formulas there is an integral 
binding principle of life. As a humanness underlies all the 
varieties of tribe and race, linking men to God and to each 
other, so a divineness of consecrated living forms links of 
union among men of varied creeds ; a principle of " natural 
selection " formulated by Christianity centuries ago, when it 
constituted fraternal love the test of discipleship, saying: 
" We know that we have passed from death unto life because 
we love the brethren." 

It may be, Mr. President, that in these past days we have 
all builded unwisely, even though each one's honest effort hsts 
been to reproduce his idea of the pattern shown him in his 
mountain of communion ; each building to exhibit his own 



92 • Quarter-Millennial A)inivcrsary of tJic 

interpretation of God's plan. Sometimes, mayhap, we have 
built over against one another. Sometimes there has been 
in one hand a sword for destruction, while the other held a 
trowel for construction ; but at best we have erected only 
individual columns, which, however beautiful in our own eyes, 
scarcely realize Christ's ideal by which the world was to be 
convinced. May not these individual pedestals and columns 
be united by a girder of Christian activity and brotherhood, 
and surmounted by a dome of Christian thought and scholar- 
ship, so that each one's best work shall be found to consist in 
its being part of an holy temple in the Lord ; Jesus Christ 
himself being the chief corner-stone on which the apostles 
and prophets have built as a foundation ? 

We heard this afternoon the wonderful announcement " that 
a rigid Calvinist would not invalidate his orthodoxy if he 
believed that an Arminian might be saved." After this pro- 
digious step in advance, is it unreasonable to hope for a day 
when, if the wolf and the lamb may not actually dwell to- 
gether, and the leopard lie down with the kid, and the calf 
and the young lion and the fatling together, yet an Arminian 
and a Calvinist may walk arm in arm, and be closely followed 
by priest with presbyter, and the procession be enlarged by 
two agreeing bishops, though one of them may have received 
his office by the holding up of hands in election, and the other 
by the laying on of hands in consecration ; and all these be 
seeking for some gathering, be it conference, convention, 
council, consistory, synod, classis, or assembly, where the only 
shibboleth for admission shall be " supreme love to God, and 
corresponding love to the brethren." 

And now Mr. President, so far as I may presume to repre- 
sent the Church of which I am a member, I say, in the lan- 
guage of one of old : " The Lord God of your fathers make 
you a thousand times so many more as ye are, and bless you, 
as He hath promised you." 



Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. 93 



When Dr. Tiffany had conckided, Dr. Chambers 

said: 

"The last speaker on our programme belongs to a 
body which is at once the oldest and the youngest. 
It is the oldest, because in New England its origin 
was coeval with our own, and yet the youngest, be- 
cause it was within the present century, indeed, some 
distance in it, that it made a permanent lodgment 
upon this Island. The relations between the Dutch 
Church and the Congregationalists have not always 
been pleasant. Whoever reads the history of the 
first hundred or hundred and fifty years after the set- 
tlement at Plymouth and on this Island will see rec- 
ords of questions which were sometimes very ardently 
prosecuted as to conflicting jurisdiction ; and I re- 
member to have heard the story which, no doubt, is 
authentic, that a gigantic rooster, such as used to be 
placed upon the top of the steeples of our churches 
down in the Fort, was always found pointing, no mat- 
ter from which direction the wind came, toward the 
East. It scented danger from that quarter. But 
these are reminiscences of the past. We bring them 
up to smile at them. Now, cordiality, friendliness, 



94 Quarter-Millennial Anniversary of the 



mutual regard, the strongest desire for each other's 
welfare and co-operation in efforts for that one cause 
to which we are all sworn, bind us closely together. 
The brother who is to speak to us needs no introduc- 
tion. Although his residence is beyond the East 
River, and another city claims him as its ornament, 
yet so often have audiences in New York as numerous 
as this, and more so, been chained by his words of 
eloquence and wisdom, that I need only mention his 
name, the Rev. Richard S. Storrs, D.D., of the Con- 
gregational Church, whom I now have the pleasure 
to introduce." 



Reformed Protestant DnteJi ChurcJi. 95 



REV. DR. STORRS'S ADDRESS. 



yi/r Christian Friends : 

It is not, I think, altogether to the discredit of the Congrega- 
tional communion, that it has been planted in this great city 
more recently than the others, the representatives of which 
have spoken to us so eloquently this evening. Dr. Chambers was 
mistaken, I am sure, in the inference which he naturally drew 
from the attitude of that historical rooster. He was up there 
looking out for recruits ! Our churches, at Plymouth, if not at 
Salem, began earlier than yours, but for centuries Congrega- 
tionalism w^as so interested in the progress and success of other 
communions that whenever it sent any of its representatives 
to New York, it sent them under a sort of implicit pledge to 
become either Dutchmen or Presbyterians. Our friend Dr. 
Bethune used to say — did say once, certainly, in commenting 
upon a speech from some one who, as he thought, had un- 
duly exalted his own denomination — that he felt bound in 
justice to his own Church to declare that he presumed that in 
heaven all Christians would be Reformed Dutchmen. How it 
may be in heaven I do not know, but a great many Congrega- 
tiorial Christians have come to be Reformed Dutchmen when 
they came to New York. When you have had a promising 
young man born and bred here, of whom you wanted to make 
a pillar and an ornament in the Church, you sent him to New 
England. We Congregationalists have taken him and put him 
in one of our churches, for five or six years, and then sent him 
back to you to do grand service, by eloquence and by character : 
like your venerable senior pastor, Dr. Vermilye. We did the 
same thing with Dr. Rogers; and if you have got any more 
such young men, send them along, and we will fit them for 
your Collegiate pulpits ! 



96 Quartcr-MilloDiial A)iniversary of tJie 



It is very delightful to me, my Friends, to stand here this 
evening, if only to renew the associations of my heart with 
those men whom I have known, and honored, and loved, in the 
pulpits of this Collegiate Church, and in the other pulpits of 
the same communion in this city, with whom in my earlier 
or later ministry I was familiar, who have passed now into the 
heavens. I remember well those men to whom reference 
has been made — Dr. Knox, Dr. Brownlee, and Dr. DeWitt, 
clear and venerable names ! Dr. Milledoler had not ceased 
from his labor upon the earth, though he had closed his min- 
istry ; I remember him as graceful and beautiful, Dr. Brodhead 
as majestic and charming, in old age. Dr. Dwight of the First 
Dutch Church of Brooklyn, the successor of Polhemus and 
Selyns, officiated in an important service at my installa- 
tion in my church there, thirty-two years ago this week. I 
never think without fond remembrance of his beautiful face, of 
his courtesy of manner, of his tender interest in all good men 
and good things, and of the prayer on which that evening he 
lifted us all toward the heavens. And the wit, the poet, the 
accomplished scholar, the careful theologian, the eloquent 
orator, the devout and adoring Christian, Dr. Bethune, whose 
funeral I attended in this very church sixteen years ago, was for 
years my nearest neighbor, almost, and among my most inti- 
mate friends. I cannot but think if he were here to-night, to 
utter his kindling and lofty thought, in his impassioned elo- 
quence, with his voice that spoke like a harp and rung like a 
trumpet — if he were here to-night, to utter his love and venera- 
tion for the Church to which his manhood and his age had 
been given, and in which his heart was garnered up, how silent 
our lips would be ! and how our hearts would throb within us ! 

These' have gone into the heavens. Ah ! yes, but they are 
the representatives to us, let us not forget, of all who have 
ascended with them, in the history of this Church for two 
hundred and fifty years. Back to the forest and the swamp, 
back to the days of the tomahawk and the Indian bow, of the 
wampum and the birch canoe, this history carries us. How 
many have gone up, through the ministry of truth here, rising 



Reformed Protestant Dutcli CJnirch. 97 



on the wings of prayer and adoration on earth, and then rising 
with the angelic cohorts in the heavens, whose thought may 
be with us to-night ! The mountains are full of the radiant 
presence. More are they that have ascended than they who 
tarry. The greater, the nobler, and the lovelier company is 
on high. Ah ! my Friends, the church on earth and that 
above but one communion make; and it is beautiful to stand 
here, in that communion, and to feel ourselves surrounded and 
over- watched by this great cloud of witnesses, by this celestial 
company ! 

Two hundred and fifty years. Yet, as I have sat here this 
evening, I have been thinking, my Friends, how small a part of 
the real history that is ! How the roots of this history run back, 
far beyond that, into a grand and heroic preceding age. The 
history of the Church in Holland, of which this was here the 
earliest representative, is the most illustrious and sublime 
history of modern Europe. The communion with which I 
have been associated, in all my public life, sprang from a 
parallel movement in England, but it never was marked by 
the same heroic endurance, the same frequent sacrifice unto 
martyrdom, which was familiar in the Church in Holland. I 
remember what the historian tells us, of the 18,000 whom 
Alva burned or butchered or buried alive, to trample out the 
Reformed religion in the Netherlands. I remember the 
massacres at Antwerp, at Naarden ; and I say again that there 
is no page in the history of modern Europe so magnificent 
as that. 

It was true of the Dutch Church, as it has somewhere been 
said of Christianity itself, that it sprang up under the axe, it 
flourished in the blast, and it blossomed in the flame. It had 
a grand renown, back of New Amsterdam, back of this conti- 
nent, and of the ocean before us. You trace your lineage 
to the most royal workers and champions of the truth in 
modern times. No wonder you cherish that magnificent 
renown ! It is a sublime inheritance. And standing here 
to-night, with the thought which the last brother has suggest- 
ed, that this occasion looks forward as well as backward, 



98 Quarter- Millennial Anniversary of the 



we certainly, representatives of other communions, can ask for 
you no greater blessing, no richer endowment of God, than 
that the same sublime qualities which were illustrated in that 
history may continue in you and in your children to the end 
of time — the same constancy of faith, the* same sovereign 
devotion, in the gospel of God. 

We have heard to-night, and it has been truly said, that 
this Church has been conservative of the truth. It could not 
have been otherwise, without being supremely unfaithful to its 
illustrious history. It was not a gospel of "mush" and 
nonsense for which men met death with untrembling hearts, 
and women submitted to be buried alive. It was a gospel 
with not one prophecy too many, pointing forward to the 
coming of the Lord, with not one miracle too many, to 
illustrate His divine power and supremacy — a gospel in which 
was the offer of forgiveness through the atonement, and of 
purification by the Holy Ghost, and a heavenly promise for 
those who receiyed it. 

Carry on that gospel, so majestic, and glorious, and divine, 
appealing so powerfully and vividly to the faith of the fathers, 
into your subsequent history as a church ; and it shall be the 
power of God, upon you and with you, for all the centuries ! 
Carry on, as well, their spirit of self-sacrifice. 

Churches grow by self-consecration. That motto I remem- 
ber which Dr. Tiffany has referred to — " daudo conscrvat : " the 
church .stands and grows by giving. The church comes to 
be what it ought to be by communicating. The fervent mis- 
sionary zeal of the Church in Holland was one great secret 
of its magnificent rise and power. Men like your missionaries, 
Scudder, Abeel, beloved disciples, going to carry the go.spel 
to the heathen on distant shores, are working for your en- 
largement, for your permanent continuance, as truly and as 
effectively as though they were at home. 

Carry on the same spirit which was in the fathers, of love 
for liberty and for learning. We remember that splendid 
example given by the citizens of Ley den, when after their 
lieroic endurance of the siege, in reward or recompense of 



Reformed Protestant DittcJi CJiurcJi. 99 



their valor and patience, they were permitted to take their 
choice between the remission of a certain heavy and perpetual 
tax, or the establishment of a University. Now, I don't know, 
I won't undertake to say, what the citizens of New York 
would do if such- a proposition were made to them ; but the 
citizens of Leyden, hunger-bitten, famine-stricken, staggering 
in their wan and wasted frames along the streets that had been 
smitten as by the blast of fire in that terrific siege, chose the 
University. All honor to the memory of their wisdom and 
nobleness! I remember, too, that in the hall, I think, of 
the Universit}^ at Utrecht, around the dome were placed or 
planned words which declared that " the seat of learning is 
the natural cradle of liberty." 

Yes, it is true that the hall of human wisdom has been the 
cradle of liberty, there and elsewhere. It is for us joyfully 
to remember that the Declaration of Independence, written 
by our fathers, caught its spirit, and even its terms, in part, 
from the Declaration of Independence signed at the Hague in 
1581 ; and that the union of the American colonies followed 
closely the example of the union of Utrecht, which was the 
corner-stone of the Netherland Republic. 

As long as this sovereign constancy to the gospel, as long 
as this sublime spirit of consecration, fortitude, and self-sac- 
rifice, as long as this love of learning and of liberty com- 
bined, remain in the Dutch Church, its future is secure. 
Wealthy or poor, numerous or few, that makes no difference. 
The church which has these elements within it, and which 
does its work in the inspiration of them, is the Church of the 
Future in America. 

Two hundred and fifty years ! How utterly incredible, how 
inconceivable, this city would have seemed to" those who 
founded this church in its feebleness two hundred and fifty 
years ago, looking out from the fort of which Dr. Anderson 
has told us ; seeing in prophetic vision these vast avenues, 
these populous squares, these thundering trains along the 
streets — this city sweeping upward and outward, eastward, 
northward, westward, and on every hand, and already beating 
LefC. 



100 Quarter-Millennial Anniversary of the 



with the tread of milHons of feet — incredible, indeed ! They 
could not have conceived it. How httle can you and I con- 
ceive what this city is to be, two hundred and fifty years in 
the future ! what miUions of population are to be gathered 
in it ! how its piers are to throb with the commerce of the 
world, crowding against them ! how its influences are to go 
out over all the land, and to the ends of the earth ! The same 
faith in the gospel, the same constancy, fidelity, and self-sacri- 
fice, the same love for liberty and for learning, and the same 
hospitality toward other communions, which were the glory of 
this Church in its earlier life, and have been ever since, will 
give to that city of the Future influences that shall keep it 
pure and make it purer, and will give to the semi-millen- 
nial anniversary of this Church a glory that we cannot 
prefigure, and can only vaguely anticipate. God grant it ! 

I remember the. inscription on the monument of the great 
Admiral Van Tromp, in the old church at Delft, written in 
Latin, the close of which may, perhaps, be not unfairly trans- 
lated thus : " At last, in battle with the English, himself un- 
conquered, if not the victor, he ceased at the same moment to 
triumph and to live." I hope that the epitaph of this Dutch 
Church never will be written, while the continent stands ; but 
when it is written, or spoken, in the last consummation, when 
the Lord himself appears in the air, I trust it may be said, and 
truly said of it, that if not itself the conqueror over all forms 
of sin, it was itself unconquered, and that it ceased to triumph 
for the Master only when it ceased to live ! 



Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. 



lOI 



%\^ jSurrpssion of 'JPasfopx* 



1628-1878. 

; •-•-• 






Jonas Michaelius, - - - - {circa}) 


[628- 


1633 


EVERARDUS BOGARDUS, ----- 


[633- 


1647 


Johannes Backerus, - - ' - 


[647- 


[649 


Joannes Megapolensis, ----- 


[649- 


[669 


Samuel Megapolensis, - _ _ - 


[664- 


[668 


WiLHELMUs Van Niewenhuysen, 


[671- 


682 


Henricus Selyns, - - - - - 


682- 


701 


Gualterus Du Bois, ----- 


[699- 


[751 


Henricus Boel, ------ 


^713- 


754 


Joannes Ritzema, ------ 


744-] 


784 


Lambertus De Ronde, - - - _ 


751- 


784 


Archibald Laidlie, - _ . _ _ 


764- 


779 


John Henry Livingston, - - - - 


77c^] 


812 


William Linn, - - 


785-1 


805 


Gerardus Arense Kuypers, 


789-1 


833 


John Neilson Abeel - - - - - ] 


795-1 


812 


John Schureman, 


809- ] 


811 


Jacob Brodhead, -----.] 


809- ] 


813 


Philip Milledoler, ----- 


813-1 


825 


John Knox, _-----.] 


816-] 


858 


Paschal Nelson Strong, - - - - ] 


816-] 


825 


William Craig Brownlee, _ - - - ] 


826-] 


860 


Thomas De Witt, - - - - - ] 


827-] 


874 


Thomas Edward Vermilye, - - _ - ] 


839- 




Talbot Wilson Chambers, - - - i 


849- 




Joseph Tuthill Duryea, _ - - - ] 


862-] 


867 


James Meeker Ludlow, - - - _ ] 


868-] 


877 


William Ormiston, -_-_-] 


870— 





Reformed Protestant DntcJi ClinreJi. 103 



^he ensuing .^tanzas, fi|om the feiitile and gijaccful pen of Milliam 

inland Bourne, Bsq., ai|e tahen fijom the columns of the 

** ^hijistian Xntelligencei| " of the weeh 

following the celebijation : 



§gmii. 



S-iggested by the Tivo Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Collegiate Church, City 
0/ New York, Thursday, November 2 ist, rSjS. 



God of our Fathers I Thee we praise ! 

Eternal King ! our sovereign Lord I 
For all Thy love our songs we raise, 

Forever be Thy name adored. 

Through changing years, and scenes that pass 
Like shadows on the path of time, 

Thy mercies all our praise surpass. 
Enduring as Thy truth sublime. 

The promise spoken by Thy Son, 
Thy samts in holy trust believed, 

In tears and blood their course they run 
Till they the conqueror's crown received. 

Lo I I am with you to the end ! ' ' 

We praise Thee for the Word divine ; 

Give grace, O Lord ! all hearts to blend • 
In love to this dear Church of Thine. 

Give to this Zion life and light ! 

Build up its walls and altars strong ! 
Till all its love and labor bright 

Shall end in Heaven's eternal song. 



I04 



Quarter- Mill ejinial Anniversary. 



Note. 

^he following diagram accur(ately »|epi|escnt8 the lettci|ing upon 

the top of the litflemoiiial (^ane, pijcsented on the day of 

the commemot|ation to the i]>enioi| Ifastoij, by 

J^. H. W^. "l^an "^echten, :Ssq., as noticed 

in the ptiefatotiy i^emaiihs by 

!te)t|. "^eijmihje. 



^-nCTOft^ <^ 



:pOCTO'?S 



•YERMILVT/ CP\ 






JONES S.CO. 



INTERS. 114 FULTON ST., ( 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 108 829 4 • 



